Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is stocking the Interior Department with staffers who’ve spent years working for the extractive energy industry, suggesting an agency increasingly less friendly toward public-lands conservation, says Western Values Project, a progressive advocacy organization.
Twenty-one of the known hires have a background in resource extraction, while only three are from “conservation, outdoor recreation, or hunting and fishing backgrounds,” says Chris Saeger, executive director of Western Values Project.
“For example, Scott Angelle, now the director of Zinke’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, received donations from energy companies such as Chevron, Energy Transfer Partners [the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline] and Occidental Petroleum Corporation, during political campaigns,” says High Country News. “In his new job, Angelle will inspect and regulate offshore oil and gas production.”
Several of the new Interior appointees were once employees for Americans for Prosperity, “a far-right advocacy group funded by the Koch brothers, known for their support of fossil fuel industries. Deputy Interior Secretary David Bernhardt is a former lobbyist for oil, gas and mining interests, the report points out,” says High Country News.