Center for Biological Diversity

For Immediate Release, December 13, 2016

Contact: Kierán Suckling, (520) 275-5960

Center for Biological Diversity Statement on Ryan Zinke as Trump's Choice for Interior Secretary

TUCSON, Ariz.— Freshman congressman Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) has reportedly been picked by Donald Trump to serve as secretary of the Interior to oversee endangered species, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, hundreds of millions of acres of public land including the national parks, Bureau of Land Management lands and national wildlife refuges and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Zinke was a staunch, early and controversial supporter of Trump throughout the presidential campaign. Trump has picked his wife Lola Zinke to oversee the transition of the Veteran's Administration.

Statement of Kierán Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity:

“Ryan Zinke has a dismal 3 percent lifetime environmental voting record. His brief political career has been substantially devoted to attacking endangered species and the Endangered Species Act. He led efforts to strip federal protections for endangered wolves, lynx and sage grouse, voted to exempt massive agribusiness and water developers from Endangered Species Act limitations, and opposed efforts to crack down on the international black market ivory trade."

“Zinke consistently votes for the interests of oil and gas companies, which is not surprising since Oasis Petroleum is his largest campaign contributor and the oil and gas industry is his third-largest sector contributor. He has also voted against and attacked the establishment of protective national monuments on public lands."

“On the bright side, Zinke has spoken and voted against the outright transfer of federal public lands to states and corporations. This is in keeping with positions taken by Donald Trump and his son Donald, Jr. Unfortunately Zinke has championed the same result — greatly increased logging, mining and oil drilling, greatly reduced environmental protections, elimination of federal control, and weakening of environmental standards — by turning over public land management to industry-dominated panels appointed by state governors. In Zinke’s scheme, industry and state interests get all the environmental destruction and profit they want, with the federal government being made to pay for it through nominal retention of land title."

“Zinke’s cynically named ‘Resilient Federal Forests Act of 2015’ was one of several schemes he led to turn control of public land to industry-dominated panels. It was widely opposed by conservationists, sportsmen, businesses and even some timber companies for dispensing with environmental laws and public involvement in order to ramp up unsustainable logging levels."

"Disturbingly, in 2012 Zinke contradicted his recent stance when he signed the extremist Montana Constitutional Governance Pledge promising to 'legally and administratively oppose the multitude of bureaucracies that have sprung up to enforce the unlawful seizure of our native land and its resources including, but not limited to: the Bureau of Land Management, the United States Park Service, the various bureaus of Wildlife and Fisheries, etc., and restore the rightful powers over the land to the State and private ownership.' During confirmation hearings, the Senate needs to grill Zinke on this contradiction and ensure he truly supports keeping public lands in public hands."

The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.1 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.

www.biologicaldiversity.org

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