A weekend report from Congressional Quarterly, the newspaper that focuses on Washington, D.C. politics, mentioned Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Bainbridge Island) as one of three leading candidates for secretary of the interior should Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) be elected president.

Inslee, who has held his 1st District seat since 1999, has made environmental issues a priority of his tenure, and recently wrote a book on alternative energy.

CQ, who also brought up Rep. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) and Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D-Mont.) as potential choices, recognizes Inslee's record, and says his selection would be a boon to environmental groups, even if it might cause some dismay among oil companies.

See what CQ had to say about Inslee below.
During six terms representing suburban Seattle, he has become one of the leading liberal voices in the House on energy and natural resources issues. He is a strong advocate for environmental protections on public lands and has opposed controversial proposals to allow more logging in national forests. So for environmental groups he would be an attractive pick. Advancing renewable sources of energy is a top priority of his, and Inslee would mark a clear reversal from Bush administration priorities to aggressively expand oil and gas development, and mining. But he would be a controversial choice who could alienate conservatives and Western energy producers.