Zinke
Rick Smith
Great Falls (MT) Tribune
Saturday, December 17, 2016
Why should you care about the Interior department?
Phil Drake , pdr...@greatfallstribune.com
The multifaceted Department of the Interior’s presence is felt deep and wide in Montana, those familiar with the agency say, with some adding they are encouraged a Montanan has been nominated to lead the DOI while others are taking a more cautious view.
Created by Congress on March 3, 1849, to take charge of the nation’s internal affairs, it manages America’s natural and cultural resources.
The DOI’s mission statement reads that it “protects and manages the Nation’s natural resources and cultural heritage; provides scientific and other information about those resources; and honors its trust responsibilities or special commitments to American Indians, Alaska Natives, and affiliated island communities.”
It is a big player in Montana, some said.
“When you think of a state such as Montana, the reach of their influence is quite significant,” Clayton Elliott, executive director of Montana Conservation Voters, which claims to serve as the voice of Montana’s conservation and environmental community, said of the DOI. “No matter who you are in Montana, I am sure the DOI touches your life.”
Rep. Ryan Zinke, 55, a former GOP state senator from Whitefish, was nominated Thursday by President-elect Donald Trump.
“He has built one of the strongest track records on championing regulatory relief, forest management, responsible energy development and public land issues,” Trump said in the nomination announcement.
If he passes the nomination process, Zinke will be the department’s 52nd secretary, following in the footsteps of Sally Jewell.
According to its website, the DOI employs 70,000 people, including expert scientists and resource-management professionals, in nine technical bureaus.
Those are: Bureau of Indian Affairs; Bureau of Land Management; Bureau of Ocean Energy Management; Bureau of Reclamation; Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement; National Park Service; Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; and the U.S. Geological Survey.
Its website lists its priorities as encouraging youths to be outdoors, climate change, Native American issues, new energy frontier and water challenges.
Twenty-nine percent of Montana’s 93.2 million acres (27 million) is federal land, the DOI said. DOI officials were unable to say how much of those 27 million fell under its control.
The DOI did not make anyone available to directly answer questions on this story, however, it offered this prepared statement: “The Department of the Interior, under the Obama administration, has adopted a collaborative approach to public lands, waters and wildlife management that includes taking feedback from all stakeholders as part of the decision-making process. Secretary Jewell has instituted a landscape approach to conservation and development that respects the different points of view that are inherent in public lands management.”
Some state agencies in Montana, such as Fish, Wildlife and Parks and the Department of Livestock, work with the DOI.
Officials there describe the relationship as good, but add they are not always in lockstep.
“We try to find as much common ground as we can,” said Mike Honeycutt, director of the state Department of Livestock, “but there are always certain issues in which that is difficult.”
He mentions bison management in Yellowstone National Park as one of those issues.
“Management of bison and elk, those are always tough issues,” he said. “You try to work with common ground to find long-term solutions.”
In terms of Zinke being placed in charge of the agency, Honeycutt said he was heartened.
“I think it’s always nice to at least know you have somebody there who has a deep understanding of the issues of our state who is leading the agency.”
But he notes that issues at the state level are usually handled bureaucrat to bureaucrat.
“So it’s hard to see the effect leadership will have at the level we work at,” Honeycutt said.
Paul Sihler, chief of state for the state FWP, said his department did not work with high-level staff at the DOI, saying that was mostly done by the congressional delegation or the governor’s office.
He said there was interaction with the park service and grizzly bears. He also described the relationship as good.
“There is always some disagreement, but I’d characterize the relationships as things we need to work and collaborate on for shared resources,” he said, adding it’s usually in the newspapers where the conflicts are shone.
Conservation and environmental groups say they will be monitoring Zinke’s actions and hold him accountable.
“I fear he will try to change the rules of the game in favor of resource extraction,” said Anne Hedges, deputy director and lead lobbyist of the Montana Environmental Information Center.
“I’d say Zinke has a checked past with public land,” she said. “His history on mining and oil and gas extraction is terrible.”
In terms of her organization’s opinion of the DOI, “It’s a mixed bag,” she said. “Sometimes we agree with the work of the DOI and sometimes we are frustrated with their actions.”
But she did say the DOI has occasionally held the state accountable when it disagreed with its actions.
Beth Kaeding of the Northern Plains Council, said the DOI plays an important role in Montana and said her group is interested in what happens on public land that impacts ranchers and farmers.
Brian Sybert, executive director of the Montana Wilderness Association, said the DOI has tremendous impact, and national parks in Montana are world-renowned.
And, he said, the agency has great influence on the quality of life, recreation and the economy.
He notes that Zinke has described himself as a Teddy Roosevelt conservationist.
In an April newspaper opinion piece, Zinke wrote: “Like Teddy, I believe our lands are worth cherishing for the greater good. While there is a lot that separates folks as Republicans and Democrats, there’s also a lot that binds us together as Montanans and Americans. Preserving and conserving our public lands is one of those values.”
Sybert said that’s a high bar.
“Theodore Roosevelt went far beyond, he protected wild spaces and protected national parks,” he said. “To hold yourself up as a Teddy Roosevelt conservationist means you are working to protect valuable resources and wildlife habitat.”
He said the WNA is an advocate for public land.
“I would frame it like this, we will look for every opportunity to work with Congressman Zinke, but also hold him accountable for the actions and decisions that undermine the health and well-being of public land.”
Rick Smith
5264 N Fort Yuma Trail
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Rick Smith
Ecosystem Marketplace
Monday, December 19, 2016
Some See Opportunity In Zinke Pick For Interior, Conservationists Stress Restoration Economy
Kelli Barrett
Conservationists have roundly slammed most of US President-Elect Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees, but the nod to Ryan Zinke for Secretary of Interior is something of a mixed bag. Some working in species conservation are focusing on the economic benefits derived from ecosystem markets in order to promote securing a proper balance between ecosystems and the environment.
Some people in the environmental community aren’t sure what to make of Ryan Zinke, US President-Elect Donald Trump’s pick to head the Department of Interior, which oversees hundreds of millions of acres of property through the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service, among other agencies, and manages wildlife and endangered species through the Fish and Wildlife Service.
On one hand, he is an outdoors enthusiast from Montana strongly opposed to the sale of public lands and strongly in-favor of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. On the other hand, Zinke, Montana’s only congressman and a former Navy SEAL commander, is a staunch advocate for extractive energy activities, throwing his support behind expanding oil and gas operations on federal lands.
“President-elect Trump’s nomination of Rep. Ryan Zinke as Secretary of the Interior adds to the troubling imbalance of a cabinet that is skewed toward fossil fuel interests,” Fred Krupp, President of the Environmental Defense Fund, said in a statement. “My colleagues and I are concerned about several aspects of Rep. Zinke’s record, particularly his support for aggressive oil, gas and coal extraction on federal lands and his opposition to a sensible rule to reduce natural gas waste.”
For Eric Holst, the Associate Vice President of Working Lands at the EDF, federal land management is all about striking the right balance between environmental protection and economic prosperity.
“If President-elect Trump plans to open federal lands to more oil and gas drilling while also protecting wild places for hunters and anglers, he will need an Interior Secretary that’s equipped with a robust mitigation plan,” Holst wrote in a blog post.
And mitigation planning, which essentially ensures that adverse and unavoidable impacts to biodiversity are offset elsewhere to ensure a no net loss of wildlife, doesn’t have to be a burden on the economy, Holst added. “In fact, it can be a big boost.”
He notes the market opportunity mitigation creates through such mechanisms as conservation banking and – EDF’s brainchild – habitat exchanges. Indeed, recent research valued biodiversity markets along with those for water and carbon at USD 100 billion. And a 2015 study revealed that ecological restoration, under which mitigation falls, is a $25 billion industry.
“In the last eight years, the number of conservation tools available to manage our air, water and wildlife has increased twofold. Among them are some innovative approaches that deploy the markets to drive the most impact on the ground for each dollar invested,” Holst wrote, adding that these tools often operate in tandem with working lands.
“The economy can grow and the environment can be protected,” says Wayne White, a longtime participant in the mitigation banking industry and a former President of the National Mitigation Banking Association. “They can co-exist.”
It’s impossible to say at this point whether Zinke will adopt the approach to land-use that White and Holst are pushing for, and environmental groups have been considering his track record to determine what a Zinke-led DOI would look like.
For businesspeople working in outdoors recreation, hunters and anglers and those selling gear, some say Zinke is the best possible outcome under a Trump administration.
“He’s shown courage and commitment to public lands and conservation and is someone we think would be an excellent secretary of Interior,” said Whit Fosburgh, the President of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.
Not everyone agrees, and some green groups are calling him a champion of coal.
“A Secretary of the Interior should defend our natural heritage, not the fossil fuel industry,” Friends of the Earth Climate Campaigner Marissa Knodel said in a statement. “Representative Zinke and Donald Trump are determined to turn our public lands and waters into energy sacrifice zones. Zinke denies climate change science, and champions increasing fossil fuel development for corporate profits over the health and safety of people and the planet.”
A statement from the League of Conservation Voters said something similar.
“Trump is sending yet another message to Big Polluters that their profits will come first on our public lands,” said Gene Karpinski, League of Conservation Voters President. “He is a climate denier who supports drilling in the Arctic and continuing outrageous subsidies for dirty energy development on public lands – positions that align with the oil and gas companies that have spent nearly $350,000 on his campaigns.”
In a 2014 Billings Gazette article, Zinke said, “climate change is not a hoax, but it’s not proven science either. You don’t dismantle America’s power and energy on a maybe. We need to be energy independent first. We need to do it better, which we can, but it is not a settled science.”
Krupp hopes Zinke makes clear his stance on climate change.
“Rep. Zinke has promised to ‘faithfully uphold’ President Theodore Roosevelt’s vision of public lands managed for the benefit and enjoyment of all Americans as well as generations to come,” Krupp said. “The next Interior Secretary needs to understand that our public lands are at risk from unchecked climate change and that fossil fuel extraction on these lands contributes to the problem.”
Rick Smith
High Country News
Web Exclusive
Tuesday, December 20, 2016
Can Trump’s Interior secretary pick live up to conservationists’ expectations?
Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke evokes Roosevelt, but his record has veered away from environmental protection.
Elizabeth Shogren DC Dispatch
The Montana congressman whom President-elect Donald Trump named to head the Interior Department wants people to think of him as a Teddy Roosevelt conservationist. His Twitter bio describes him as a “Teddy Roosevelt fan.” “Like Teddy, I believe our lands are worth cherishing,” Rep. Ryan Zinke, a Republican, wrote in an opinion piece in the Billings Gazette in April.
But Zinke’s efforts to associate himself with Roosevelt ring hollow for some environmental activists in Montana who have for years fought his efforts to extract more coal, oil, gas and timber from public lands, and an examination of his record shows that in recent years, his positions, particularly on public lands and climate change, have veered away from environmental protection.
John Todd, conservation director of the Montana Wilderness Association, ticks off one anti-environmental effort after another from Zinke. For instance, Zinke voted for the Sportsmen’s Heritage bill, which could allow dam building, logging and temporary roads in wilderness areas. Zinke recently held listening sessions on a draft bill that would undermine a president’s authority to designate national monuments under the 1906 Antiquities Act by requiring approval from state governors, counties and property owners. Roosevelt, the first president who had that authority, used it widely to preserve treasured places such as California’s Muir Woods, Utah’s Natural Bridges and Wyoming’s Devils Tower. “All of those (Zinke’s actions) run counter to the things that Theodore Roosevelt stood for,” Todd says.
But as a politician from a state where enthusiasm for the outdoors is nearly ubiquitous, Zinke tries to project an image as a rare breed: a pro-conservation Republican. He pushes for access to public lands and supports the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which uses oil royalties to acquire public lands. He also distances himself from the Sagebrush Rebellion call for public lands to be transferred to state control. “Selling off our public lands is a non-starter. I’ve voted against budget resolutions and bucked party leadership on more than a couple occasions to defend our lands,” Zinke wrote in the Billings Gazette.
Zinke quoted Roosevelt after Trump named him the head Interior, where he will oversee 500 million acres of land, about one-fifth of the nation and 70,000 employees, including many scientists. Some 40 percent of the nation’s coal comes from lands managed by the department, which also oversees oil and gas development on and offshore. The agency also is entrusted with protecting endangered animals and plants, wilderness areas and national parks. “I shall faithfully uphold Teddy Roosevelt’s belief that our treasured public lands are ‘for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.’ I will work tirelessly to ensure our public lands are managed and preserved in a way that benefits everyone for generations to come. Most important, our sovereign Indian Nations and territories must have the respect and freedom they deserve,” he said in a statement.
Trump reportedly was urged to pick Zinke by his son Donald, Jr., an avid trophy hunter. “My administration’s goal is to repeal bad regulations and use our natural resources to create jobs and wealth for the American people, and Ryan will explore every possibility for how we can safely and responsibly do that,” Trump said in the same statement.
Like the president-elect, Zinke has drawn a line when it comes to permanently giving away federal lands. This summer, he was among the GOP faithful selected to draft the party’s platform. But he resigned his position in opposition to a provision that calls for handing over federal lands to states. “What I saw was a platform that was more divisive than uniting,” Zinke said at the time, according to the Billings Gazette. He addressed the GOP Convention in July, but spoke only about military issues and international affairs.
A fifth generation Montanan who grew up right outside of Glacier National Park, Zinke is best known on the national stage as a former Navy Seal with strong opinions about foreign policy. Anne Hedges, deputy director of the Montana Environmental Information Center, recalls that her first impression of Zinke in 2009, when he was a state senator, was that he was also a “conservative conservationist,” which reflected the politics of his district. “Initially, I really liked him. His can-do spirit and willingness to buck the establishment was refreshing. I remember lobbying him in his first session; he was quite moderate. He was very receptive to environmental concerns and his votes reflected that,” she says.
For instance, he opposed efforts to weaken the state’s Environmental Policy Act and supported renewable energy. In 2010, Zinke signed a letter from state legislators calling on Congress and President Obama to embrace comprehensive clean energy and climate change legislation. “The climate change threat presents significant national security challenges for the United States – challenges that should be addressed today, because they will almost certainly get worse if we delay,” the state legislators, including Zinke, wrote.
But after an unsuccessful bid in 2012 to be Montana’s attorney general, he no longer seemed open to environmental causes, Hedges recalls: “The shift was like someone turning off a light switch. There was not much more room to work with him.”
In Washington, he has focused more on extraction than conservation. When he first ran for Congress in 2014, he named as his biggest issue, getting approval for a silver and copper mine beneath the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness south of Libby. Conservationists were concerned that the Montanore mine would dewater the wilderness area. (The mine recently won federal approval but the state has only permitted a first stage.) Fossil fuel extraction companies and their electric utilities figure prominently in the list of Zinke’s major donors. Oasis Petroleum was his top donor, according to an analysis by campaign finance watchdog group, Center for Responsive Politics. And Cloud Peak Energy, which mines coal in Montana and Wyoming, kicked in $10,000. All together oil and gas companies, their owners and their employees contributed about $160,000 to his reelection bid, according to the analysis.
In Congress, Zinke championed a bill to overturn Interior Secretary Sally Jewell’s moratorium on new coal leases on federal land. He also opposed the Obama administration’s rules to improve environmental protections during hydraulic fracturing on public lands, and to protect waterways from coal mining and other development.
Although he frequently declares his opposition to public land transfers, his couches his position by stressing that local folks are better than Washington bureaucrats at determining the appropriate balance between the multiple uses of public lands. For instance, he sponsored a bill to allow management of federal lands by panels appointed by state governors. “Montana can manage our lands better than Washington,” Zinke said in a 2014 debate.
“That’s a distinction without much difference,” says Hedges. Hedges believes that Zinke’s ambition for higher office motivated him to change his views to align with GOP leaders and their big donors. For instance, after supporting national climate legislation a few years earlier, in a 2014 debate for his House seat, Zinke rejected the clear message from scientists that humans are causing climate change. “It’s not a hoax, but it’s not proven science either,” Zinke. “But you don’t dismantle America’s power and energy on a maybe. We need to be energy independent first.”
Still by opposing the land transfer movement and supporting access to public lands and the Land and Water Conservation Fund, Zinke has won friends in the sportsmen’s crowd. Dave Chadwick, director of the Montana Wildlife Federation, says he doesn’t see eye-to-eye with Zinke on coal and other fossil fuels, but believes Zinke is earnest in trying to emulate Roosevelt.
“We might disagree with him about how completely his actions are in line with what Teddy Roosevelt might want,” Chadwick says. “But I think he’s sincere when he calls himself a Teddy Roosevelt Republican.”
So far, it’s unclear how Zinke will mesh with the rest of the incoming administration. Trump’s picks to head the Energy Department and Environmental Protection Agency have long histories in promoting fossil fuels and fighting environmental regulations. Trump’s pick for Energy, Rick Perry as Texas governor, sued the EPA for its finding that carbon dioxide is a pollutant –the Supreme Court sided with EPA. And to top the EPA, Trump selected Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, who in recent years has sued to overturn one environmental rule after another including cleaning mercury from power plant exhausts to so reducing haze over national parks. Chadwick hopes that if Zinke is confirmed by the Senate and becomes Interior secretary, he will lead other Republicans to embrace conservation as the bipartisan value it once was.
This article has been updated to correct the title of John Todd, of the Montana Wilderness Association, of which he is the conservation director, not director of the Wyoming Wilderness Association.
Correspondent Elizabeth Shogren writes HCN’s DC Dispatches from Washington.
Rick Smith
Clark Fork (MT) Valley Press
Wednesday, December 21, 2016
Rep. Ryan Zinke accepts nomination as Secretary of the Interior
By SAM WILSON and SEABORN LARSON Special to the Valley Press
Ryan Zinke, the Republican Congressman representing Montana’s at-large U.S. House district, on Dec. 15 announced he had accepted President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination to serve as the next Secretary of the Interior.
“As inscribed in the stone archway of Yellowstone National Park in Gardiner, Montana, I shall faithfully uphold Teddy Roosevelt’s belief that our treasured public lands are ‘for the benefit and enjoyment of the people,’” Zinke said in a press release Thursday morning.
In his statement formally announcing Zinke’s nomination, Trump praised the Whitefish native’s record on “regulatory relief, forest management, responsible energy development and public land issues.”
“America is the most beautiful country in the world and he is going to help keep it that way with smart management of our federal lands,” Trump’s statement added.
Montana’s other statewide officials offered support for Zinke’s nomination, including Sen. Jon Tester and Gov. Steve Bullock, both Democrats.
“I’m pleased the President-elect nominated someone from the West for a post that’s critically important to Montana’s outdoor economy and way of life,” Tester stated in a press release.
“Montanans know how important the U.S. Department of Interior is to protecting our natural resources and outdoor heritage and it is reassuring that a Western voice is being advanced for a post that is critical for Western states,” Bullock said in a statement.
Zinke still faces confirmation by the Senate before he can take the helm of the Department of the Interior, which manages the majority of the federal government’s land holdings and oversees the Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other natural resource agencies.
IF CONFIRMED, the congressman would also help drive policy for and direct funding decisions within the National Park Service.
With Glacier National Park providing much of the tourism appeal of Zinke’s home of Whitefish and other gateway communities in the region, National Parks Conservation Association program manager Michael Jamison views the appointment in a positive light.
“He’s tied to this town in some pretty profound ways and I would argue that Whitefish is tied to this park in some pretty meaningful ways as well,” Jamison said Thursday. “It would be really hard to be from here and not understand the importance of national parks to gateway communities.”
The National Park System has a $12 billion deferred-maintenance backlog, which continues to grow as the agency’s budget limits the amount of year-to-year maintenance that gets completed. A report published by the Park Service earlier this year estimated Glacier’s backlog at $179.8 million.
“That’s absolutely a place where a Secretary Zinke could really excel,” Jamison said. “Part of the Secretary of the Interior’s job is to help set the priorities. You only have a certain number of dollars to work with, how do you spend them? ... The other part is working with Congress to increase, decrease or maintain the dollars that are coming.”
GIVEN THE Bureau of Land Management’s vast holdings of mineral-rich public land in the American West, Zinke would have a powerful voice on natural resource development on public lands.
Zinke has remained a staunch supporter of fossil fuel extraction, and has frequently criticized policies by the Obama Administration to limit those activities, notably the president’s moratorium on federal coal leasing.
In September, Zinke visited a pair of idled mining projects in Northwest Montana recently acquired by the Coeur d’Alene-based Hecla Mining Company.
Noting Zinke’s academic background in geology, Hecla spokesman Luke Russell told the Inter Lake Thursday that the company was pleased Trump chose a nominee familiar with the natural resource industry in Montana and the Western U.S.
“He doesn’t have to learn the West as if Trump had picked somebody from not the West, Russell said. “I think he’s demonstrated this balanced, collaborative approach that there are different issues and viewpoints that need to move forward in a collaborative way,” Russell said. “That’s the approach that will be refreshing and very positive for the Secretary of State’s office and I anticipate that’s the type of approach he would take.”
Most of the federal government’s public-land footprint in Western Montana is managed by the U.S. Forest Service, housed within the Department of Agriculture. But Zinke’s critics noted that the congressman would have decision-making authority through the BLM, which manages natural resource development beneath those lands.
“He will be the administration’s voice and leader on decisions over millions and millions of acres of public land, so his perspective is going to be critical, not just on where and how lands are developed but where and how lands are protected,” John Todd, conservation director for the Montana Wilderness Association, said in an interview Tuesday. “Leading up to his re-election as a congressman, he spent a lot of time talking about being a ‘Roosevelt conservationist.’ I hope his future actions match his past rhetoric.”
SWAN VIEW Coalition President Keith Hammer expressed concern over the impact that a Secretary Zinke would have on the fate of federally protected species in the state.
“He’ll be in control of the Fish and Wildlife Service, and we’ve seen lots of political interference under the Bush Administration and even under the Obama Administration, and we can expect it to get worse,” Hammer said.
He noted Zinke’s opposition to a recent District Court decision that favored stronger protections for Canadian lynx, listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act. He also suspects the nominee would resist efforts to establish federal protections for wolverines and more aggressively work to remove Yellowstone-area grizzly bears from the list.
“The Fish and Wildlife Service is being pushed by Montana and other states to get with it and expedite the de-listing in Yellowstone” and other ecosystems, he said. “We would expect, with Zinke at the helm of the Interior, that pressure would increase and this would end up full-steam ahead.”
SALLY JEWELL, Obama’s current Interior Secretary, earlier this year canceled more than a dozen controversial oil and gas leases approved under the Reagan Administration in the Badger-Two Medicine Area, located on BLM land south of Glacier National Park and near the Blackfeet Reservation.
In announcing the decision, Jewell cited the area’s cultural ties to the Blackfeet Nation, who consider the land sacred. Zinke had previously told the Inter Lake he preferred an agreement that would satisfy both parties.
“I don’t support arbitrarily canceling leases, because that’s a contract,” he said. “I understand the tribe and the sensitivity of that area, and if the government is going to pull out of the leases, they would have to either provide compensation or make other leases available with similar prospects.”
As interior secretary, Zinke would manage the Bureau of Indian Affairs, giving him broad influence over U.S. policy toward tribal nations within its borders.
In an interview Thursday, Blackfeet Chairman Harry Barnes called Zinke’s appointment “a great day for Montana” and noted Zinke’s role in getting the House to pass the tribe’s water compact last month.
“We looked to him to get it not only introduced, but then to marshal it through a somewhat dysfunctional Congress,” Barnes said. “For us to actually have an ear at that level, it’s very promising.”
Zinke’s appointment still leaves a number of question marks in Barnes’ mind, but he said the Blackfeet have strong working relationship with the congressman and noted that at the very least, Montana’s reservations would have a bigger voice in the White House.
“What you’ve got to remember is we’re pretty much a fly-over state,” he said. “... We’ve certainly had people of the caliber that should be sitting in high, decision-making roles, and as I said, we’ve always been passed over.”
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Rick Smith
Bozeman (MT) Daily Chronicle
Tuesday, December 27, 2016
A fine line awaits Secretary Zinke
Public lands conservation advocates understandably harbor mixed feelings about the future of the U.S. Department of Interior.
U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke has been named secretary of the department by President-elect Donald Trump and will likely assume that post soon after Trump’s inauguration in January.
Zinke was hailed by environmental groups for voting to renew the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund and his support for public access to federal lands. But he has also expressed support for an expanded and less-regulated oil and gas industry, and that could have implications for several critical lands and wildlife species.
When most people think about federal lands in Montana, they think of the Forest Service. That agency is administered by the Department of Agriculture. But the Department of Interior holds sway over the federal National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Bureau of Land Management. Taken together, these agencies administer millions of acres of land in the region, as well as mineral extraction regulation on many millions more.
It’s a massive job, to be sure, and we wish him well.
But as Zinke assumes his role as interior secretary in the coming months, we remind him that polls consistently show that Montanans – by significant margins – oppose transferring federal control over public lands to states or private interests and support preservation of public lands, and access to it, over wholesale development.
The Trump cabinet will likely have close ties to the fossil fuel industry. That’s not unexpected. A focus of the president-elect’s campaign was on protecting and expanding those industries. We urge Zinke, then, to walk that fine line between that stated goal and protecting federal lands from excessive coal, gas and oil development.
Zinke’s rise from state legislator to a member of a presidential cabinet in just a few short years has been rapid – almost dizzying. If confirmed, he will be the first Montanan to serve in the cabinet of a United States’ president. That’s heady stuff, and Zinke owes much of his rise to Montana voters.
As he develops important policy that affects Glacier and Yellowstone national parks and Montana BLM and reservation lands, he is urged to remember that.