Congressional Oversight? Nah, I’m out.
Secretary of the interior Ryan Zinke resigned Saturday, leaving behind a tainted legacy of double digit federal investigations into his behaviors and weakened environmental policies.
Who is Ryan Zinke?
The secretary of the interior oversees America’s natural resources and is also in charge of regulating coal mining and oil and gas development in the oceans off US coasts. Ryan Zinke started his tenure at this powerful job by riding a horse to the office on his first day. Not a good sign.
He then went on to….
- Mastermind Trump’s decision to significantly shrink Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments to give fuel companies greater access to protected lands
- Beefed with Patagonia publicly when they ran an ad attacking above decision
- Weakened protection for endangered species
- Nixed Obama’s ban on importing elephant trophies from two African countries and eased rules on extreme hunting practices in Alaska
- Be utterly ethically bankrupt that there are 17(!) federal investigations into his actions, one of them being spending $139,000 to fix 3 sets of his office doors
Why is he out?
Democrats took the House back in the midterms – which means there will be congressional investigations into Ryan Zinke in addition to all the fed investigations mentioned above. So dude basically said “fuck all that, I’m outta here”. Deputy secretary David Bernhardt is likely to be promoted to fill his position – his background? Oil lobbyist.
