BILLINGS, Mont. — As former U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke exits Washington chased by ethics investigations and criticism of his actions favoring industry, he told The Associated Press he’s lived up to the conservation ideals of Theodore Roosevelt and insisted the myriad allegations against him will be proven untrue.
The former Montana congressman also said he quit President Donald Trump’s cabinet on his own terms, despite indications he was pressured by the White House to resign effective Wednesday. During almost two years overseeing an agency responsible for managing 500 million acres of public lands, Zinke’s broad rollbacks of restrictions on oil and gas drilling were cheered by industry. But they brought a scathing backlash from environmental groups and Democratic lawmakers who accused him of putting corporate profits ahead of preservation.
In his first interview since stepping down, Zinke said the changes he instituted meshed with Roosevelt’s belief in balance between nature and industry. He added that they were needed in part to unfetter energy companies bound by unreasonable curbs on drilling that were largely imposed under former President Barack Obama.
“Teddy Roosevelt said conservation is as much development as it is preservation,” Zinke said, referencing a 1910 speech by the Republican president. “Much of our work returned the American conservation ethic to best science, best practices … rather than an elitist view of non-management that lets nature take its course.”
Zinke mentioned Roosevelt often during his almost two-year tenure, and historian Patricia Limerick said it’s accurate that the former president talked of development as a component of conservation. But Limerick noted Zinke’s recommendations to Trump to reduce the size of national monuments in the West and elsewhere was in direct contrast to Roosevelt’s embrace of the law that allowed their creation, the Antiquities Act of 1906.
“You don’t get to call yourself a follower of Roosevelt if you’re really chiseling away at one of his principal heritages,” said Limerick.
House Democrats plan to put Zinke’s policies under the spotlight with oversight hearings beginning next month, said Adam Sarvana, a spokesman for Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona, the Democrat in line to lead the House Natural Resources Committee.
The hearings initially will focus on policy changes such as “giveaways” to the oil and gas industry under the leadership of Zinke, Sarvana said. He added they later could be expanded to include the various ethics investigations pending against Zinke, a former Navy SEAL and avowed Trump loyalist.
The investigations have ranged from a probe into a land deal involving Zinke and the chairman of energy services giant Halliburton, to questions about his decision to reject a casino in Connecticut sought by two tribes. During his interview with the AP, Zinke denied a Washington Post report that Interior Department investigators believe he may have lied to them, which has reportedly prompted an examination of potential criminal violations by the U.S. Justice Department’s public integrity section.
