After 31 years with the Interior Dept.'s Bureau of Reclamation, Robert W. Johnson will be the agency's new leader. The Senate confirmed Johnson as Commissioner of Reclamation early in the morning of Sept. 30, before it wrapped up work until after the Nov. 7 elections.

Dept. of Interior Johnson

Johnson most recently has been director of Reclamation's Lower Colorado Region.

Johnson was one of four nominees confirmed by the Senate to top Interior positions before lawmakers adjourned. The others are: Mary A. Bomar, approved as director of the National Park Service; David Bernhardt, confirmed as the department's solicitor, its senior legal officer; and C. Stephen Allred, approved as assistant secretary for land and minerals management.

Bomar has spent her career with the Park Service's and has headed its Northeast Region since July 2005. Allred, a former senior vice president and group president with Morrison-Knudson Corp., was head of Idaho's Division of Environmental Quality under then-Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, who now is Secretary of Interior.