With his wife and family seated behind him, Rep. Ryan Zinke faced the Senate Committee for Energy and Natural Resources yesterday during his confirmation hearing for Secretary of the Interior. The Montana Republican told the committee that he was “absolutely against” the sale or transfer of public lands. But he reassured many of his fellow Republicans that under his watch states would have more say in the management of natural resources and wildlife within their borders.
“I fully recognize that there is distrust, anger, and even hatred against some federal management policies,” said Zinke. “Being a listening advocate rather than a deaf adversary is a good start.”
Zinke said he believes some public lands should be set aside in the “John Muir model of wilderness,” with as little human interference as possible. But that the vast majority of public lands should be open to multiple uses, including energy extraction, timber, grazing and hunting.
“You can hunt and you can fish. You can drill an oil well. Make sure there’s a reclamation project,” he told the committee. “Make sure there’s a permit. [Make sure] there’s NEPA [the National Environmental Policy Act] … I don’t necessarily think they’re in conflict. I think you have to do it right.”
If confirmed, Zinke would oversee more than 500 million acres of public land, as well as the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Fish & Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the National Parks Service. Some environmentalists have expressed concern over Zinke’s ties to the fossil fuel industry. According to ClimateWire, he has received $345,000 since 2013 from oil and gas donors.
Asked by Senate Chairman Lisa Murkowski of Alaska whether he would formally review the Obama administration’s decision to halt energy development on public lands in Alaska, Zinke promised that he would.
“I’m an all-of-the-above energy guy,” he said, arguing that coal from public lands is crucial for American energy independence.
Zinke told the committee that his three immediate tasks if confirmed would be to “restore trust by working with rather than against local communities and states”; to address the $12.5-billion backlog in national park maintenance and repairs; and to equip his staff with the “right tools, right resources and flexibility to make the right decisions that give a voice to the people they serve.”
That voice, he said, has in many instances, been stamped out by federal bureaucracy and top-down decision-making, including the Obama administration’s designation of national monuments like the 1.35-million-acre Bears Ears National Monument in Utah. Zinke promised to travel to any state with a national monument to speak with the communities there. He said he would base his recommendations to President-elect Donald Trump on whether to attempt to cancel a monument designation — something that no president has done — on those conversations.
The nominee said that he believes any future monument designations should first be approved by the state where they would be located, as a recent bill introduced by Sen. Murkowski and 25 others recommends.
Zinke was criticized earlier this month by conservation groups and Democrats after he voted for a rule that would make the sale or transfer of public lands easier. Under the rule, which was part of a larger House rules package, the Congressional Budget Office would not have to account for the loss of revenue from public lands in the event of their sale or transfer. Public lands contribute to the U.S. Treasury through grazing, logging, energy extraction.
But Zinke, who has many times voted against legislation to sell off federal land or give it to the states to control, told the committee that if the rule had been a standalone piece of legislation, he would not have approved of it.
“That was a rule among many rules,” he said. “I would characterize it as an indicator of how upset people are about our land policy at the moment … I have to go out there and restore trust. One of the reasons why people try to sell or transfer public land is there’s no trust.”
Asked by Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont whether he agrees with Trump that climate change is a “hoax,” Zinke said that he believes the climate is changing and that humans are part of the reason why.
But, he added, “I think where there is debate is what [the man-made] influence is and what we can do about [it]. As the Department of the Interior, if confirmed, I will inherit the [U.S. Geological Society]. I’m not a climate scientist, but we have a lot of great scientists there. I don’t believe it’s a hoax. I think we should be prudent.”
Senator Al Franken, a Minnesota Democrat, pressed the nominee to define what he means by man-made “influence.”
“I’m not an expert in this field,” Zinke replied.
“That to me is a cop-out. I’m not a doctor, but I have to make healthcare decisions,” Franken told him.
“There is no model today that can predict tomorrow. We need objective science to figure out a model and determine what we’re going to do about it,” said Zinke.
The senators were invited to submit final questions to the nominee in writing before deciding on his confirmation.