Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke hit back at Democratic lawmakers questioning his judgement on policies and spending, Wednesday during a Congressional hearing.
Democratic Reps. Betty McCollum of Minnesota and Nita Lowey of New York delivered tough questions to Zinke during a House Committee on Appropriations hearing over the Department of the Interior’s budget for fiscal year 2019.
McCollum, ranking member of the committee, said in her opening comments that the review of national monuments ordered by President Donald Trump and conducted by Zinke in 2017 “has been proven to be a sham, with preconceptions that benefit the fossil fuel industry.”
“The openings were false, misleading and blatantly untruthful,” Zinke said. After McCollum referred to an article in The New York Times, Zinke called the national newspaper’s reporting “questionable.”
“Investigative reporting by The New York Times has found gaining access to oil, natural gas and uranium reserves played a central role in shrinking Bears Ears by nearly 85 percent,” McCollum said. “Your staff also developed projections on coal deposits to justify reducing the Grand Staircase monuments by 47 percent.”
Lowey, in her opening statement, questioned the Trump administration’s spending priorities and its “energy dominance” strategy. She also took a shot at Zinke’s travel spending, as well as tens of thousands of taxpayer funds going to remodel several doors in the Interior secretary’s office. The congresswoman also said that Zinke commissioning DOI commemorative coins with his name on them and flying the American flag at Interior headquarters when he is present is a sign the secretary is using his position to inflate his ego.
He answered some of the questions from the lawmakers later in the hearing.
“I’m a geologist. I can assure you that oil and gas in Bears Ears was not part of my decision matrix,” Zinke said. He has not seen a proposal to mine uranium nor extract oil or natural gas in Bears Ears’ former boundaries since the monument was rolled back at the end of January.
He also defended his travel expenditures by suggesting a double standard between himself and former Interior Secretary Sally Jewell. Jewell spent taxpayer money to take flights to hike around national monuments. Zinke defended Jewell’s flights and hiking as “exactly what a secretary should do.”
“I took three trips for $17,000 and it was the only transportation available” to meet his schedule, Zinke said, defending his own arrangements.
Zinke clarified that expenses for several doors in his office were due largely to regulations surrounding renovations to historic landmarks.
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