Interview With Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke

Above, Zinke says many national park campgrounds were designed during the Eisenhower era of
 station wagons and Coleman tents and needs to be modernized for RVs. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

From reducing the size of some Utah national monuments to a proposal to raise the entrance fees to 17 national parks to fund a $11 billion backlog of national park projects, it has been a busy first year for Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke.

The Interior Secretary sat down for a chat with Michael Coleman of the Albuquerque Journal.

It begins with:

WASHINGTON – U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s first year in office was a whirlwind of activity and controversy, with plenty of both centered in New Mexico. 

President Donald Trump appointed the former Navy Seal and Republican congressman from Montana as interior secretary in late 2016, handing him responsibility for a vast federal portfolio that includes the National Park Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Interior’s Bureau of Land Management is responsible for 13 million acres of public land in New Mexico alone. 

If it all seems daunting, the perpetually upbeat Zinke doesn’t let it show. 

“I love my job,” the interior secretary declared last week during an interview in his office, which boasts jaw-dropping views of the Washington Monument and National Mall. “I’m passionate about public lands.” 

On his first day on the job – clad in jeans and a black cowboy hat – Zinke rode a U.S. Park Police horse to his swearing-in. He continued to make splashy news throughout the year, whether it was for his plans to reorganize the Interior Department and slash its workforce by as many as 4,000 employees, his stated intent to open more federal lands to both oil drilling and recreation, or his admonishing a national park superintendent for tweets about climate change.

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