Zinke unleashed: A candid interview with a 'change agent' in the D.C. swamp

The secretary of the interior is no stranger to me. Ryan Zinke has been a local hero in the Flathead Valley for years — first as a prep football star in Whitefish, then as a military hero who served with the Navy SEALs.

Later, he took an interest in politics and served a term in the Montana Legislature, was eventually elected to the U.S. House as Montana’s sole representative, and then was tapped by President Trump for the job at Interior. In the meantime, he also served a brief tenure on the editorial board at the Inter Lake, where I came to respect his down-home wisdom, wry sense of humor and utter disdain for arrogance and pretension.

I suppose it is those qualities which make him such a bad fit for the preening political culture of Washington, D.C., hereinafter known as the swamp… He’s had one accusation after another heaped on him — from riding in “private jets” to giving out “sweetheart deals” to acquaintances, and the most common one — that he has betrayed Teddy Roosevelt and is giving away our public lands.

But Zinke is letting the mud thrown at him slide off and sticking to his mission of reinventing the Interior Department so it serves the American people rather than special interests. In a wide-ranging conversation last week, Zinke took on his multiple critics in the national media and the environmental movement and came out swinging, defending his role as a “change agent for good.”

“I’ve been shot at before; I’m very comfortable with it,” Zinke said, but even this combat veteran said he was shocked by how brazen the ‘fake news’ industry is.

“When you are there and you’re at the [event] and you walk out and read some of the … it’s not even news … I never really understood how fake it was until I was there. And it’s misleading intentionally.”

As an example, Zinke talked about the coverage of his review of recent national monument designations made under the Antiquities Act. President Trump had ordered the review in an executive order, and Zinke recommended shrinking the acreage associated with certain monument designations in order to allow multiple use. Most controversial has been the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, designated by President Obama at 1.35 million acres and reduced by President Trump to 201,000 acres. Zinke says that by emphasizing the acreage number, critics are missing the point because the monument was formed from federal land that will remain under federal protection, but is managed differently because it can allow multiple use.

“Public access, traditional hunting and fishing and grazing is as much of a culture in some lands as anything else, and I will say public lands belong to the public and not special interests.”

Secretary Zinke got particularly fired up when talking about the controversy that ensued when outdoor retailer Patagonia accused President Tump of “stealing” public land by changing the designation.

“Patagonia ran false ads that somehow we were selling public land. In fact, this administration has expanded wilderness. In the case of Bears Ears there was not one square inch that was removed from federal protection, so it was a lie. And my response to Patagonia? If they are so concerned about the environment, then why do they produce their product overseas (in China) — where there’s very little environmental regulation — and pay near slave labor [wages] to do it. If they were so concerned about the environment, maybe they should follow Apple’s lead and come home and manufacture here. We would welcome them.”

Zinke returned time and again to the theme that the environmental movement did not have the best interests of the U.S. public at heart.

“What we fight every day are a group of what I would call ‘green decoys’ that would rather watch forests burn down than harvest a tree, they would rather shut roads down than let grandpas take their grandkids out in a truck and hunt. Their view of public land is that it is for their use only, and my view is that public land is for the benefit and enjoyment of the people, and the stewardship of public land means ‘best science, best practices, greatest good, longest term … Preservation alone is not stewardship, and therein lies the lie.”

Despite being pilloried in the media for his continuing efforts to re-invent the Interior Department, Zinke said he remains convinced that the majority of people support his goal of opening up more land to the public.

“I would like to say there are certain issues that are bipartisan and American, One of them is public lands and looking at infrastructure needs and the Interior public lands. I would say that is a start of having unity. Public lands are not Democrat or Republican, and are enjoyed by both,” Zinke said.

“My consistent message is that I’m not an advocate for sale or transfer of public land; I’m an advocate for actively managing our land to make sure we do stewardship that should include best science and best practices and not abandonment.”

Asked if he had any regrets about giving up his seat in Congress to take the reins of Interior and become a daily target of the left, Zinke was adamant:

“I can get more done as a secretary in a week than I could in a term in the House. I would rather have criticism moving forward than cower in a foxhole doing nothing. In my life, I’ve spent over 30 years serving this country, and I am absolutely with the president — it is time to change the course of this country, and if anyone thought it was gonna be easy, I think they were mistaken.”

(Next week, I’ll report on the rest of my interview with Secretary Zinke, including additional commentary on how the national media and “green decoys” are trying to thwart his agenda of opening public lands to the public.)

Frank Miele is the managing editor of the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell, Montana. He can be reached by email at fmiele@dailyinterlake.com.