As Democrats prepare to investigate Zinke, expect more of the same from his replacement at Interior
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As Ryan Zinke packs up his desk at the Department of Interior, Donald Trump is pondering which anti-environmental extremist to replace him with to oversee the $11 billion, 70,000-employee operation. Meanwhile, Democrats insist that his resigning will not sAs Democrats prepare to investigate Zinke, expect more of the same from his replacement at Interior
As Ryan Zinke packs up his desk at the Department of Interior, Donald Trump is pondering which anti-environmental extremist to replace him with to oversee the $11 billion, 70,000-employee operation. Meanwhile, Democrats insist that his resigning will not stop them from probing a string of alleged ethical lapses and policy shenanigans. A real estate deal involving Halliburton and Zinke’s decision to recommend the shrinking of two national monuments in Utah are leading issues headed for investigation. Democratic Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) will take over as chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee in two weeks and the decision to vastly reduce the acreage of those monuments will apparently be a top priority for scrutiny. Most experts who have weighed in on the matter believe the chopping of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante national monuments will be reversed in the courts for being out of line with the 112-year-old act that established authority over designating and expanding national monuments. At Think Progress, Mark Hand writes: Adam Sarvana, Grijalva’s spokesman on the House Natural Resources Committee, told ThinkProgress on Monday that the committee intends to continue oversight of Zinke’s policy decisions: “How they were arrived and who he spoke to before he made them, especially on questions like the destruction of the Utah monuments and the opening of public lands to major fossil fuel extraction.” “The investigations into Zinke’s ties to industry and misuse of taxpayer funds must continue and the Department of the Interior must reexamine every decision made during Zinke’s tenure that may have been influenced by the fossil fuel industry and other polluting special interests,” League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski said Saturday in a statement. The short list of replacements for Zinke includes Deputy Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, a former oil lobbyist known for representing mining and agricultural interests, particularly in cases involving government regulations. The Colorado-born Bernhardt has made numerous enemies among conservationists and fishermen. At his confirmation hearing last year, he told senators that the views of Donald Trump and not scientists would guide decision-making at the department. “We cannot allow a lobbyist like David Bernhardt to transform our public lands and waters into oil and gas production zones when we have basically a decade left to avoid climate catastrophe,” Janet Redman, climate director for Greenpeace USA, said in a statement to Miranda Green and Timothy Cama at The Hill. Read more