Rift widening between Zinke, NM senators
Of all the federal agencies, none has a bigger New Mexico footprint than the U.S. Department of Interior.
The sprawling federal bureaucracy and its Bureau of Land Management preside over millions of acres of public land in the state. Interior also runs the Bureau of Indian Affairs, National Park Service, U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife and other offices with vast power to affect New Mexico and the West. That’s why it’s troubling to see a rift developing between the state’s U.S. senators and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.
Democratic Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich both voted to confirm Zinke, a former Republican congressman from Montana, for the Interior position in March. They said Zinke’s western heritage and the moderate positions he took at his confirmation hearing gave them faith they could work with him regardless of their political differences. And despite — or maybe because of — their fierce objections to Zinke’s proposal to scale back or alter more than two dozen national monuments, including two in New Mexico, the New Mexico senators agreed to go horseback riding with him in the state’s Sabinoso Wilderness in July.
The rugged ride gave the men a chance to talk public lands, get to know each other better and have a little fun. Zinke even put New Mexico’s senators in a playful headlock during the outing.
A grinning Heinrich retaliated a couple of weeks later, catching Zinke in a headlock of his own at a meeting back in Washington. Zinke tweeted a photo of the horseplay, leading one to think these guys from opposing political parties might actually like each other.
But while Heinrich and Udall may enjoy a fairly warm personal relationship with Zinke, their professional relationship has become downright frosty. On a conference call with New Mexico reporters last week, Udall criticized Zinke’s move to position the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska for possible oil drilling. Udall lamented that he’d acted in “good faith” when he voted for Zinke, “so I’m very disappointed about how he’s performed.”
Two weeks earlier, on Oct. 23, Udall, Heinrich and Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley signed onto a letter from House Minority Whip Dick Durbin threatening to block President Donald Trump’s nominees to high-level positions at Interior if Zinke didn’t agree to a meeting to discuss the national monuments and make public his report to the White House. Zinke did not responded to the letter until Thursday, irking all of the Democratic senators involved.
Staffers for both senators told me last week that Udall and Heinrich also want Zinke to address errors of fact in the New Mexico sections of the monuments report.
Interior Department spokeswoman Heather Swift told me Friday that Zinke has already “spent a lot of time talking with the senators whose states have monuments under review, including Udall and Heinrich.”
In the time since his first letter to Zinke on Oct. 23, Durbin has, in fact, put holds on four nominees at Interior, including Trump’s pick to lead the Bureau of Reclamation and his choice for solicitor at the department. The four holds have stretched more than 100 days — in each case significantly longer that it took their predecessors to be confirmed.
Durbin also wrote a curt note to Zinke’s acting director of congressional affairs Wednesday complaining that Zinke “could not find the time” for a meeting.
“Please let the secretary know that while my colleagues and I await his scheduling decision, my hold on Department of Interior nominees will continue,” Durbin wrote.
Perhaps the Democratic lawmakers should not have been surprised by the radio silence. Politico reported in June that the White House has advised federal agencies to blow off congressional Democrats’ oversight requests, “as Republicans fear the information could be weaponized” against Trump.
Nevertheless, on Thursday Zinke did respond — tartly — to Durbin’s request for a meeting, first in a tweet and then with a letter.
A spokesman for Durbin told me Friday that the meeting of the parties involved — presumably including Heinrich and Udall — will commence, although a date has not been set.
Heinrich and Udall have not placed confirmation holds of their own on Interior nominees. But they also did not object to the maneuver Friday.
“I’m prepared to do anything necessary to protect New Mexico’s national monuments from a Washington, D.C., land grab,” Heinrich said.
Udall spokeswoman Jennifer Talhelm told me that Udall “believes it’s important to fill these positions. However, he also believed it was important to meet to discuss the future of the national monuments in New Mexico and around the country.”