State of Interior Part IV: Deconstructing Interior
You may be familiar with the name Joel Clement. He made headlines by throwing down the gauntlet on Secretary of the Interior Zinke in the Washington Post last July: “I’m a scientist. I’m blowing the whistle on the Trump administration.” The former director of Interior Department’s Office of Policy Analysis, and a leader in the development of science and policy to address climate change, Clement was abruptly and unceremoniously re-assigned to a position managing collection of federal oil and gas receipts.
Joel Clement’s story is symbolic of this administration’s approach to governance, where the reigning ideology is that the public interest functions of government are simply barriers to private gain. The Department of the Interior, under the control of Secretary Ryan Zinke, has been particularly aggressive in pursuing this ideology, waging a multi-pronged war to dismantle conservation policy, silence scientists and ignore best available science. On top of all of that, he has actively sought to cripple the capacity of the Department to carry out its public interest and conservation mission through an aggressive reorganization plan.
In March 2017 President Trump signed Executive Order 13781, calling on his Cabinet to draw up plans to “eliminate or reorganize unnecessary or redundant” federal agencies and programs. Secretary Zinke immediately began plotting his scheme to gut his Department, beginning with the involuntary reassignment of dozens of senior executives, like Clement, in June. He subsequently accused 30 percent of his “crew” of not being “not loyal to the flag.” Secretary Zinke had previously testified to Congress that beyond imposing a hiring freeze, his intent was to reduce 4,000 full-time department staff.
Cutting personnel is one way of constraining the ability of Interior to meet its duties to America’s people, lands, water and wildlife, but the Secretary wants to go even further. Secretary Zinke is seeking to entirely reorganize the Department by consolidating authority for administering the various and mission-diverse Interior agencies under the control of 13 regional czars. The purpose and result of his proposal would be to reduce or eliminate the relative independence of Interior agencies to manage and conserve land, waters and wildlife in accordance with their individual statutory and policy mandates, to the detriment of transparent and balanced decision-making and conservation of our natural resources.
Under Secretary Zinke’s plan, central offices in Washington, D.C., would also be relocated to western locales, where government decisionmakers would likely be more prone to capture by development and resource extraction industries, undermining the missions of the National Park System and National Wildlife Refuges, as well as administration of the Endangered Species Act, Migratory Bird Treaty Act and other conservation mandates. Many are skeptical that a costly reorganization will actually serve the public as much as it will special interests, and there is no clear understanding about how it will help lands and wildlife.
Secretary Zinke is also going out of his way to limit public engagement in Interior affairs. Seemingly intent on disenfranchising the public voices that have the ultimate say in public lands management, Secretary Zinke has shut down or stymied dozens of public advisory boards. One frustrated county commissioner reported, “[t]he administration is one-sided, that side is to do whatever they can to deregulate for the benefit of the oil and gas industry at the sacrifice of long-term environmental needs.” In August, Secretary Zinke disbanded the Department’s Advisory Committee on Climate Change and Natural Resources Science. In January nine members of the National Park System Advisory Board resigned in protest over Secretary Zinke’s refusal to meet with them. In her resignation letter, one Board member wrote, “from all of the events of this past year I have a profound concern that the mission of stewardship, protection, and advancement of our National Parks has been set aside.” Secretary Zinke welcomed the resignations, without any regard for the positive collaborative efforts they made on behalf of the National Park System, including celebrating the System’s centennial anniversary.
The disgraceful treatment of science advisory boards is a symptom of a broader disdain for science that Secretary Zinke has displayed since he assumed office. In his confirmation hearing, he refused to acknowledge the overwhelming scientific consensus on the causes of climate change. When the superintendent of Joshua Tree National Park tweeted about climate change, Secretary Zinke brought him all the way to Washington to deliver an in-person reprimand. His budget proposal for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) — the Department’s science arm — included cuts to nearly 40 research programs, which Secretary Zinke touted as cutting “wasteful spending.” Recently two USGS officials after accusing Secretary Zinke of violating the agency’s scientific integrity policy by prematurely releasing a government assessment of oil and gas potential within the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska — essentially politicizing science. Of course, the Secretary’s action is not a surprise, given his track record of bulldozing any policy that stands in the way of energy dominance on public lands.
Last fall, Defenders of Wildlife obtained a copy of Secretary Zinke’s “Top 10 Priorities” for the Department of the Interior and were struck by their euphemistic tone. Each priority is written to evoke an image of a responsive, progressive Interior Department serving the country by protecting our natural heritage and ensuring sensible use of our natural resources…which is completely contradicted by the Department’s exploits under the Trump administration. By including priorities like “Sustainably develop our energy and natural resources,” “Restore trust and be a good neighbor” and (the kicker) “Create a conservation stewardship legacy second only to Teddy Roosevelt,” Secretary Zinke is attempting to hide his true intentions of bending his Department to the will of special interests.
Secretary Zinke’s focus on undermining or eliminating conservation agencies, law, policy and capacity could be ruinous for the wildlife, public lands and waters the Department of the Interior is charged to manage and conserve.
In the fifth part of our series, we will hear from Defenders’ President and CEO Jamie Rappaport Clark about the future of our work to protect wildlife — and how you can help.
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