Trump Pick To Head Interior Department Says Climate Change Is Not A Hoax

Interior Secretary-nominee Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., tells a Senate committee that if he is confirmed, he'll take President Theodore Roosevelt as his model for managing federal lands. 

J. Scott Applewhite
/ AP

Originally published on January 18, 2017 7:38 am

President-elect Donald Trump's pick to head the U.S. Department of Interior, Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., says he does not believe climate change is a hoax and promises to bring a Teddy Roosevelt-style approach to managing federal public lands. 

Zinke made the comments at a confirmation hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Tuesday.  The congressman and decorated former Navy SEAL commander faced about four hours of questioning. 

Zinke's response to a question from independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont on climate change is drawing particular attention because it seems to run counter to what his prospective boss, Trump, has said on the matter. 

"I don't believe it's a hoax," Zinke told Sanders.  He added: "The climate is changing.  Man is an influence.  I think where there's debate on it is what that influence is [and] what can we do about it." 

Last year, Zinke resigned his seat on a GOP platform-writing committee when the Republican National Committee included the language calling for the transfer.  But earlier this month, the congressman voted with fellow House Republicans for a rule change that could make that transfer easier. 

Pressed by Democrats on the committee to explain, Zinke said he wouldn't have voted for it if it had been a stand-alone measure; rather, he noted, it was part of a bigger package of broader changes. 

"I want to be clear on this point, I am absolutely against [the] transfer or sale of public land," Zinke said today. 

The Department of Interior and its agencies like the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management have combined control of hundreds of millions of acres of public lands, mostly in the West.  During the Obama administration, fights over control of federal land boiled over into armed standoffs led by rancher Cliven Bundy and his sons in Nevada and Oregon. 

If confirmed, Zinke pledged he would "hit the road" immediately and seek to start cooling those tensions over land use. 

"Outside of Washington, D.C., when you start going west, there is a lot of anger; there is a lot of mistrust," he said. 

Zinke said one of his top priorities would be to give local land managers and rangers more flexibility in land management decisions.  Too often, he said, local decisions are reversed by higher-ups in the agencies back in Washington. 

That's a complaint that's long been uttered from those on both sides of the aisle when it comes to federal land decisions on issues including ranching, mining and wilderness protections.  And it's one of the biggest challenges facing the new administration with urban and rural America as polarized as ever. 

"We all love our public lands, and the duty of the Department of Interior as a secretary is to make sure that we have a broad consensus on what we're doing," Zinke said. 

Zinke is a relative political newcomer in Washington and to politics generally.  During his short tenure as a state lawmaker in Montana, he developed a reputation as a moderate on some issues.  And his repeated nods to the conservation legacy of President Theodore Roosevelt Tuesday seemed to set him apart from the interior nominees of several earlier Republican administrations.  It's already clear there could be some friction between an Interior Secretary Zinke and some Republicans in Congress especially when it comes to spending.  Zinke hinted at the hearing that one priority in an expected Trump-backed infrastructure bill will be to address a $12 billion backlog in maintenance at national parks.