Ryan Zinke Led the Largest Sell-off of Public Lands in American History

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, September 15, 2022

CONTACT
hadley@montanademocrats.org

Lyin’ Ryan Will Always Put Special Interests over Public Lands

Helena, MT – The defining moment in Ryan Zinke’s tenure at the Department of the Interior was his recommendation that President Trump illegally revoke Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. The result? The single largest rollback of land protections in American history. 

“This is not about energy,” Zinke told reporters after the protections had been rolled back. “There is no mine within Bears Ears.” But this, of course, was a lie. Internal emails obtained by the New York Times and the Washington Post revealed quite the opposite: Zinke was doing the bidding of big oil, a uranium mine, and other special interests who had spent months lobbying him and the administration. After the deal, all the uranium deposits were outside the monument.

In sum, over the 2017 fiscal year, Zinke’s department sought to lease 12.8m acres of publicly-owned oil and gas parcels to private companies.

“Ryan Zinke pretends to be a public-land-loving cowboy but the jig is up. He’s a grifter through and through,” says Sheila Hogan, executive director of the Montana Democratic Party. “If there’s any chance to make a buck giving his buddies in the oil and energy industry a leg up, he’ll sell us down the river.” 

BACKGROUND:

Big Oil was central in the decision to shrink Bears Ears Monument, under Ryan Zinke. But it was not the only instance where Ryan sold out our public land rights for special interest profits. Ryan Zinke also rewrote sagebrush habitat preservation rules, removing critical protections. Many of these proposed changes came directly from an "oil and gas lobby’s wish-list", as uncovered by Western Values Project.

As secretary, Zinke also testified in support of a budget that reduces the Land and Water Conservation Fund funding to $8.1 million—roughly one-fiftieth of its previous allocation of $425 million, and less than 1 percent of its maximum allotment of $900 million. As Outside Magazine described it, Ryan Zinke Sabotaged Our Best Public Lands Program. 

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