Speaker 1: Twenty nineteen will certainly have a lot of twists and
Speaker 1: turns in the world of environmental policy, but one thing
Speaker 1: I won't have is Ryan Zinky. This week on Parts Pavilion,
Speaker 1: we talk about the ousted head of the Interior Department
Speaker 1: and who might be succeeding there Shallohman, Welcome to another
Speaker 1: episode of Parts Pervilion, the podcast from Bloomberg environment I'm
Speaker 1: your host, David Schultz. Christmas is coming up, of course,
Speaker 1: and we had a little Christmas surprise a few days
Speaker 1: ago with the announcement that Ryan Zinki would be resigning.
Speaker 1: Zinki was the first person to serve as the head
Speaker 1: of the Department of the Interior in the Trump administration,
Speaker 1: and we're here discussing his twenty two months leading that
Speaker 1: agency with Bloomberg Environments. Stephen Lee, Stephen, thank you for
Speaker 1: joining us. Hi, David, Hi, sot. Ryan Zinky is out
Speaker 1: or I guess he will be out at the end
Speaker 1: of this year, which is quickly approaching. Can you talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about why he resigned. I understand he
Speaker 1: was going to be investigated or was being investigated from
Speaker 1: a lot of different angles. Yeah, that's right. And you
Speaker 1: know Zinki himself said that it was because politically motivated
Speaker 1: attacks had turned him into a distraction. And you know,
Speaker 1: by the way, he was very honest about that, which
Speaker 1: you've got to give him credit for that, because usually
Speaker 1: people say I want to spend time with my family,
Speaker 1: you know, that sort of thing. He just moved on
Speaker 1: to bigger and better things, exactly. He came right out.
Speaker 1: The point is he's not leaving because of any policy
Speaker 1: disagreement with the White House. I mean, he was carrying
Speaker 1: out the Trump agenda. But as you say, there were
Speaker 1: at least thirteen federal investigations against him, just a whole
Speaker 1: range of things. He was involved in a land deal
Speaker 1: in Montana with the CEO of Halliburton that raised conflict
Speaker 1: of interest sort of paid a play questions. He blocked
Speaker 1: an Indian casino in Connecticut, allegedly after being lobbied by
Speaker 1: MGM Resorts, which wants to build its own competing casino
Speaker 1: close by, as allegations that he and his wife he
Speaker 1: allowed his wife to travel with him in federal vehicles.
Speaker 1: He also angered President Trump when he said he would
Speaker 1: exempt Florida from the administration's plans to drill for oil
Speaker 1: off the Atlantic coast. That's something that the White House
Speaker 1: had not approved. You know. He became a distraction also
Speaker 1: when he recently accused Congressman Rael Griholva of being a
Speaker 1: drunk on Twitter. Yeah, that's not a good sign when
Speaker 1: the person who's going to be the chairman of the
Speaker 1: committee that oversees your department is the person you're calling
Speaker 1: an alcoholic onto. Yeah, and that's right. And Griholva has
Speaker 1: said repeatedly, Look, I'm going to investigate the hell out
Speaker 1: of Ryan Zinky. When Democrats take control of the House,
Speaker 1: Griholve is clearly going to go hard on Zink. He
Speaker 1: still is going to do that, by the way, even
Speaker 1: though Zincy's is going to be out, and I think
Speaker 1: it's just Trump decided, you know, I don't want to
Speaker 1: deal with these kinds of smears in the news every day.
Speaker 1: Will Zinky's tenure at the Department of the Interior be
Speaker 1: remembered for anything in particular, you know, was there a
Speaker 1: particular policy area or an initiative or something that the
Speaker 1: heat spearheaded that you know, we'll look back on it
Speaker 1: and think that was a Ryanzinke development. Oh, there's a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of things that he did. I mean all
Speaker 1: in you know, consistent with the White House's kind of
Speaker 1: deregulatory push. I mean, he he reduced federal protections for
Speaker 1: two national monuments in Utah. Those are the biggest, was
Speaker 1: the biggest single reduction of protected land in US history.
Speaker 1: He ended in Obama or a moratorium on leasing public
Speaker 1: lands for mining. I mean, he has been just such
Speaker 1: an activist champion for development, and his supporters, those in
Speaker 1: the in industry, you know, they love what he's done.
Speaker 1: They think that this is the right way to sort
Speaker 1: of spur the economy, make the US energy independent. So
Speaker 1: it sounds like he was making the White House happy.
Speaker 1: With a couple exceptions, he was making industry pretty happy.
Speaker 1: But he just had these sort of personal scandals or
Speaker 1: investigations into what he was doing that ultimately just became
Speaker 1: too much for him to continue on. I think, just
Speaker 1: too much of a distraction. You know, who's on the
Speaker 1: short list to replace him? You know, we have an
Speaker 1: acting head, or we will have an acting head after
Speaker 1: he leaves at the end of this month, But who,
Speaker 1: if anyone, is on the shortlist to replace him permanently. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're referring to David Bernhardt, he's the deputy secretary
Speaker 1: former fossil fuel obvious, he is the front runner. You know,
Speaker 1: he has been the architect in the background behind Interior
Speaker 1: Department policy for a long time now. And he's a lawyer,
Speaker 1: you know, he first served an Interior in two thousand
Speaker 1: and one. He's a you know, DC insider. And of
Speaker 1: course the concern about him is that he you know,
Speaker 1: he has allegedly conflicts of interest because he used to
Speaker 1: represent companies, including Halliburton, they would now stand to gain
Speaker 1: from his decisions. Okay, So he's clearly the number one candidate,
Speaker 1: and he's someone who is going to be serving in
Speaker 1: the as the head of the department in an acting
Speaker 1: capacity until they find someone permanently. That's right. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: he would also have to be confirmed again, he's been
Speaker 1: confirmed once already. That's you know, one reason that he
Speaker 1: would be sort of a path of least resistance because
Speaker 1: he you know, has already been okayed by the Center
Speaker 1: for his current job. There's other names that are out there.
Speaker 1: You know, You've got Senator Dean Heller of Nevada who
Speaker 1: just just lots to see it if you last month,
Speaker 1: we should we should note. Yeah, so he's going to
Speaker 1: be looking for something to do. Sure, you've got Congressman
Speaker 1: Rob Bishop of Utah. He's retiring in twenty twenty, so
Speaker 1: that's a ways off, but his name is out there.
Speaker 1: Congresswoman Kathy MacMorris Rogers of Washington. You know, there's a
Speaker 1: few names in the mix, and I sometimes wonder, you know, Okay,
Speaker 1: so granted, as we said, Hell and Bishop are shortly
Speaker 1: going to be looking for new lines of work. I
Speaker 1: always wonder why someone in a safe district, you know,
Speaker 1: would step aside from that job take a job in
Speaker 1: this very chaotic administration where you could be vaporized in
Speaker 1: a split second. Yeah, that's yeah, that's true. And one
Speaker 1: thing that I noticed about that list is that all
Speaker 1: of those names come from Congress or either were in
Speaker 1: Congress or are currently in Congress. Is there anyone from
Speaker 1: outside of Capitol Hill, maybe someone from even the private
Speaker 1: sector who they're considering or is it are they just
Speaker 1: sticking with kind of you know, congressional figures who you
Speaker 1: know have been vetted, have a background, and there are
Speaker 1: sort of known quantities. Yeah, it's a pretty short list.
Speaker 1: You'll notice also that those lawmakers are all from Western states, right,
Speaker 1: That's typically the DOI secretary typically comes from the West.
Speaker 1: I think they're looking for someone who has you know, okay,
Speaker 1: so Bernhardt. The thing that makes him so appealing is
Speaker 1: that he does have real policy chops. Yeah. And so
Speaker 1: many people have made this observation that there is a
Speaker 1: parallel between the EPA situation where you had this very
Speaker 1: colorful sort of character Scott Prewitt, who you know eventually
Speaker 1: was replaced by basically a technocrat, Yeah, Andrew Wheeler, who's
Speaker 1: the current acting administrator and who the Trump administration is
Speaker 1: nominated to be the permanent head of the EPA. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And a guy who knows how the system works, who
Speaker 1: gets sort of administrative law and regulatory policy. There's a
Speaker 1: real parallel there between that situation and the zinkei Bernhard situation.
Speaker 1: Same kind of thing, you know, moving to a guy
Speaker 1: who's sort of quietly behind the scenes, you know, a
Speaker 1: good chance he's going to be more effective. That would
Speaker 1: be interesting to see. The last thing I wanted to
Speaker 1: ask you about is you know where will be in five, ten,
Speaker 1: twenty years, will will we be talking about Zinke's tenure
Speaker 1: and saying, you know, in twenty years or however long
Speaker 1: you know, are we still going to be remembering things
Speaker 1: that he did, or will a lot of the things
Speaker 1: that Zinke did during his tenure at the Interior Department
Speaker 1: just be wiped out the next time. We have a
Speaker 1: democratic president who replaces Zink with someone else and undoes
Speaker 1: everything that he did. I guess I'm wondering how lasting
Speaker 1: his accomplishments will be. It's a good question in theory.
Speaker 1: Anything that's done by one administration could be undone by another.
Speaker 1: It would take some doing. I mean, Zinke's impact on
Speaker 1: policy has been very broad, and so a new administration
Speaker 1: would have to be pretty committed to turning them back.
Speaker 1: And some parts of the Zinke regime are going to
Speaker 1: be more enduring than others. So, for example, a democratic
Speaker 1: president could easily reimpose the coal leasing moratorium, and that's
Speaker 1: actually in fact or court right now, so it might
Speaker 1: be reimposed anyway. And it's the same with the Trump
Speaker 1: administration's five year leasing plan for offshore oil and gas drilling.
Speaker 1: A new president could come in and just wave that
Speaker 1: plan away. In fact, that's what Trump did. Any regulatory
Speaker 1: change is going to have to be undone by a
Speaker 1: new rule making. So for instance, the venting and flaring
Speaker 1: rule that's for methane, correct. Yeah. I mean if a
Speaker 1: new president wanted to change that and go back to
Speaker 1: the way it was under President Obama, he or she
Speaker 1: would have to embark on a whole new rule making
Speaker 1: that can take years, and you know, depending on how
Speaker 1: serious the administration is about considering the science and carefully
Speaker 1: weighing the costs and benefits, and then there would be
Speaker 1: inevitable legal challenges. So on the regulatory side, I think
Speaker 1: it's a tougher road, all right. That was Bloomberg Environment
Speaker 1: Stephen Lee talking about Ryan Zink and the Department of
Speaker 1: the Interior. For more of his reporting, visit our website
Speaker 1: at newsdot Bloomberg Environment dot com. That website once again
Speaker 1: is news dot Bloomberg Environment dot com. This episode of
Speaker 1: Parks Rebellion was produced by myself with help from Jessica Coombs.
Speaker 1: Our editor is Marissa Horne, and our audio engineer is
Speaker 1: Nicholas and Zelada. Special help this week from Rjjewele. The
Speaker 1: music for Parkspabillion is a message by Jizar. Check back
Speaker 1: in the new year for more episodes and have a
Speaker 1: lovely holiday as everyone out there