Rep. Ryan Zinke's position on global warming is difficult to nail down.
President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) to become the next interior secretary.
If the Senate approves his nomination, Zinke, an early Trump supporter and former Navy SEAL commander, will oversee the National Park System, and drilling and mining on public lands. The announcement came two days after Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), who emerged last week as the top contender to lead the Department of the Interior, conceded in a post on Facebook that she didn’t get the job, saying it was an “honor” to have been considered by Trump.
Slashing environmental regulations appears to be a top priority of the next administration, as Trump fleshes out his proposed Cabinet with climate science deniers and those who have alarmingly deep ties to the coal, oil and gas industries. Zinke has acknowledged that the climate is changing, but appears to have become bullish on fossil fuels in recent years.
But Zinke quickly veered into industry talking points, insisting he supports an “all-of-the-above” energy policy that includes coal mined in his state.
In June, Zinke’s office published a press release meant to “blast” Interior Department regulations on coal, oil and gas extraction on federal and tribal lands.
Zinke, 55, described by The Washington Post as “a lifelong hunter and fisherman,” has consistently voted against environmentalists. He has a paltry 3 percent on the League of Conservation Voters’ scorecard. The Center for American Progress listed Zinke on its “anti-parks caucus,” a collection of lawmakers the group says jeopardize the future of nature preserves.
The Department of Interior controls 500 million acres of land ― or roughly 20 percent of the U.S. landmass. It oversees a lot of oil, gas and coal development, both onshore and offshore. The agency also manages the outer continental shelf, a point of tension between the fishing and tourism industries and offshore energy developers, particularly after the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Earlier this year, President Barack Obama paused oil drilling off the Atlantic Coast and halted new coal leases on public lands ― moves Trump seems likely to overturn.
In 2008, Zinke called himself a “Teddy Roosevelt Republican” who viewed climate change as a national security risk, according to a 2014 letter to the editor published by a Montana climate consultant in a local newspaper.
This story has been updated to reflect the official announcement.