Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT), a first-term Montana congressman and President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to head the Department of the Interior, will face a Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday.
The Interior Secretary is responsible for safeguarding America’s national parks, protecting endangered wildlife, regulating the oil, gas, and mining industries, and upholding the United States’ responsibilities to tribal nations. Zinke describes himself as a “Teddy Roosevelt conservationist,” but his mixed record in Congress and campaign donations dominated by coal and oil industries have conservation groups and some Democrats unsure of how he will approach the job.
Here are three questions about Zinke that need to be answered:
Will he oppose any and all proposals to privatize, sell off, or transfer America’s public lands out of public ownership?
Zinke has already won the support of some sportsmen groups based largely on his position against selling off public lands. In a 2016 op-ed, he clearly stated that “selling off our public lands is a non-starter,” and in 2015 his website stated that he would “not tolerate selling our public lands.” He also walked out of the GOP platform committee last summer after it included language supporting the disposal of public lands.
But Zinke isn’t always so definitive in his position on a topic that is critical to conservation groups, veterans, sportsmen, and Olympians alike. In the first week of the 2017 legislative session, Zinke voted in support of a change to the House rules that establishes as fact the idea that disposing of public lands and natural resources would cost taxpayers exactly $0, making it easier for the government to sell or give away national parks, forests, and other public lands. He has also attempted to blur the lines between public land transfer and the transfer of management authority of public lands and their resources, which would essentially turn lands over to the states in every way but in name.
“During his political career, Representative Ryan Zinke has flirted with a broad spectrum of positions on public lands, only to change course when the people of Montana made it clear that siding with the land seizure agenda would permanently harm his electoral prospects,” said Jennifer Rokala, executive director of the Center for Western Priorities in a statement. “During his confirmation hearing, Rep. Zinke must reassure the American people that he will stand up to members of his own party and never tolerate any attempts to hand over the ownership or management of American lands to state or private hands.”
Does he agree with the scientific consensus that climate change is real and caused by human activities? And will he consider its causes and impacts when managing the nation’s public lands and natural resources?
Climate change is another issue on which Zinke has changed his stance a number of times. In 2010, Zinke signed a letter calling on President Obama and Congress to pass climate change and clean energy legislation.
When asked about climate change more recently, Zinke called it “not proven science” and claimed that “he has seen no scientific evidence… that climate change is changing the weather.” He also implied that volcanoes are the reason behind increased levels of CO2.
Zinke’s congressional campaigns have taken large contributions from the coal, oil, and gas industries. Since 2011, he has taken $345,136 from the oil and gas industries.
Zinke’s voting record doesn’t exactly reflect someone concerned about the impacts of climate change, either. In 2015, he quietly proposed a budget rider that would allow some of the world’s biggest coal companies — including campaign donor Cloud Peak coal — to continue to dodge royalty payments owed to U.S. taxpayers by blocking a rule that would close a loophole on how royalties are collected from coal mined on national public lands. Zinke has also supported a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency over its efforts to cut carbon pollution (and, in the process, cited an industry commissioned report to make his argument).
How many times did he travel for personal reasons on taxpayer dollars, and would these activities disqualify him for any other federal government job?
In 2014, retired Navy SEAL Capt. and Zinke’s former commander, Larry Bailey, accused Zinke of “transgressions” while serving in the Navy, including defrauding the government by “inappropriately using Navy travel funds for personal travel.” Zinke has admitted he made a mistake, but claimed that he was attempting to set up a Navy SEAL training center in Montana. Anonymous sources the Intercept that Zinke had a years-long “pattern of travel fraud” and was submitting travel vouchers to travel to Montana to renovate his home.
It is unclear whether and how Zinke was formally punished for these transgressions, and his full military records have never been released. Senators on the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources committee should review the Navy’s records and assess whether these violations would disqualify Zinke from any other job in the federal government — let alone the top job at the Department of Interior.