Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne failed to impress by surrendering on what may have been his last test of wills with state legislators. Last week, he had a chance to show that park protection and maintenance will be a priority, if the Senate approves his nomination to be the next secretary of the U.S. Department of Interior. But he fell short.

Rather than fight for his proposed state parks initiative, Kempthorne struck a compromise with lawmakers that will allow extensive gravel mining at Eagle Island State Park to raise money for improvements. Meanwhile, Kempthorne’s request for $34 million to upgrade parks throughout the state and build a new one in eastern Idaho was shaved by about two-thirds.

In an ordinary year, Kempthorne would receive kudos for focusing attention on the need to protect and upgrade the state park system – and for winning some additional funding to perform the work. But this isn’t an ordinary year. Kempthorne helped launch the 2006 session with a State of the State address that targeted Idaho’s huge, $214 million budget surplus to fund the parks initiative and provide a $50 energy assistance refund to every man, woman and child in Idaho. He fought half-heartedly for the parks initiative. The $63 million energy refund program faded away with hardly a peep from Kempthorne’s office.

Kempthorne’s last hurrah as governor during a legislative session raises questions about his ability to handle the Interior job for the good of all.

Will he have a desire to protect the nation’s public lands as Interior secretary as he first did when he proposed the Idaho parks initiative in January? Or will he be a go-along-to-get-along transitional figure in an entrenched Bush administration bureaucracy that will expose those lands to questionable use?

Will he be the consensus builder he was during his term as a U.S. senator when he won compromise approval for the 1995 Safe Drinking Water Act? Or will he be the public figure who received a zero rating from the League of Conservation Voters for five of his six years on Capitol Hill?

Will he be the conciliatory figure who worked with the federal government to win state control of the reintroduced wolf population and who dealt with Idaho’s Indian tribes in good faith on a gaming compact that later was shot down by the Legislature? Or will he be the chief executive who, playing to a Silver Valley crowd in November 2001, described the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a “nonresponsive bureaucracy” and added: “I’ve become so frustrated that I’m on the verge of asking EPA to leave the state of Idaho”?

The compromise that calls for improvements at Eagle Island State Park to be funded by dredging within the park is Kempthorne’s latest mixed signal. It could be a good thing if $15 million in dredging revenue materializes to create a first-rate Idaho park near Boise. Also, it could set a bad precedent. What will the state do next? Log state parks to raise revenue for improvements? Don’t bet against it. The Idaho Legislature isn’t known for being environment friendly.

With so many unanswered questions about Kempthorne, it’s difficult to be enthusiastic about his pending federal appointment.