Top House lawmakers are asking the Interior Department for documents and a briefing on how the agency handles employees who leak sensitive information to the media.
The inquiry comes after four separate draft documents were leaked to the press, all of them laying out key Interior Department plans for federal lands. One document had to do with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s recommendations to the White House on national monuments.
“Over the last two months at least four sensitive internal department documents have been leaked and reported by the press,” Republican Reps. Rob Bishop of Utah and Bruce Westerman of Arkansas wrote to Daniel Jorjani, Interior’s principal deputy solicitor .
“These documents were all in the drafting process and had not yet been approved as final copies,” wrote Bishop and Westerman.
Bishop chairs the House Committee on Natural Resources. Westerman chairs the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.
The Trump administration has had a problem with leaks from the beginning, which was largely not a problem for the Obama administration. Four draft memos have leaked to the media in just the past two months.
McClatchy obtained a memo in late August suggesting disagreements between Interior officials over legislation designed to prevent U.S. Fish and Wildlife agents from stopping hunters from killing bears and wolves on Alaskan wildlife refuges.
The June draft memo was obtained by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and given to McClatchy.
The Washington Post obtained an August draft memo regarding seismic surveys for oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The New York Times got hold of a draft notice to revise protections for the Sage Grouse in western states.
The Associated Press reported on the details of a “leaked memo” on Zinke’s recommendation to shrink the boundaries of four national monuments. The Interior Department began its review of national monuments in April to see if any constituted an abuse of the Antiquities Act.
“Improper disclosure of internal agency information, however, both classified and nonclassified, is an unacceptable practice,” Bishop and Westerman wrote. “Such disclosures can disrupt the sensitive work and missions of federal agencies.”
“Proper mechanisms exist for the disclosure of information by federal employees, including the reporting of waste, fraud, and abuse to appropriate entities such as agency inspector general offices or the United States Congress. At the same time, it is vital that those responsible for unauthorized releases are held accountable,” they wrote.
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