3 potential Zinke successors and why they should have you worried

Ryan Zinke’s tenure as secretary of the Interior Department will be over at year’s end. We’re turning our attention to who will replace him and carry on the Trump administration mantle of drilling, climate change-denial and selling off public lands.

Here are three of the leading candidates:

Rep. Rob Bishop puts to the test the old adage that the devil you know is better than the one you don’t. Americans know Bishop, and he’s very, very bad news for public lands and the planet. Among the House Natural Resources Committee Chairman’s most egregious anti-conservation lowlights:

• Has been the congressional ringleader of efforts to undermine the Antiquities Act, a law that has been used on a bipartisan basis by presidents to protect places of natural, cultural or historic importance, serving as an important contingency plan for when Congress is unable (or unwilling) to act. Bishop has famously joked that proponents of the law should “die.”
• Joined with other lawmakers to oppose the protection of Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, home of thousands of important tribal cultural sites. Bishop later supported Trump’s unlawful reduction of Bears Ears. 
• Has been accused by Native American tribal leaders of twisting the facts to claim Native American support for Trump’s broadly unpopular cuts to Bears Ears National Monument. In a similarly insensitive vein, stated about tribal rock art in Nevada's Basin and Range National Monument: "Ah, bullcrap. That's not an antiquity."
• Has voted for legislation to allow mining, drilling or development in or near cherished landscapes ranging from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness to Alaska’s Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. 
• Has broadly and baselessly accused scientists of manipulating data to manufacture a consensus that climate change is happening. Bishop has further dismissed the EPA’s efforts to decrease greenhouse gas emissions as a ploy for “grabbing power over our entire country.”
• Consistently votes against all measures to acknowledge the threat of climate change, cut emissions or ease off America’s fossil fuel-heavy energy mix in favor of a more sustainable future. 
• Supports efforts to block standards that would reduce methane pollution from oil and gas production. Bishop has also advocated for the repeal of measures to reform the federal coal program and halt new coal leases on public lands.
• In 2015, formed a congressional working group called the “Federal Land Action Group” designed to explore opportunities for congressional action to transfer American public lands to state control give away American public lands to states, which have disturbing track records of selling them off for development..
• Has used the federal budget process to scheme ways to sell off public lands. These included a provision ordering the Congressional Budget Office to proceed as though public lands have no monetary value, and then later asking for $50 million from taxpayers to offset state seizure of public lands, effectively admitting the previous rule was based on a faulty premise.
• Used obstructionist tactics to doom the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) to expiration in late 2015. Bishop has also introduced legislation that would drastically (and debilitatingly) restructure the program, which is regarded as America’s most important tool for protecting parks and public lands. 
• Attempted to sneak endangered-species language into the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), arguing that efforts to protect the sage-grouse and other species undermined military readiness. The defense policy bill would eventually pass without Bishop’s harmful rider, following a Pentagon statement that measures protecting the sage-grouse and other threatened species did not impact military installations and urging the rider’s exclusion from the bill.
• Introduced legislation to bar private landowners from selling their land voluntarily to the federal government, a move that would prevent the acquisition of important inholdings, jeopardizing natural resource protection and access to public lands.

A longtime special interest lobbyist and DC insider prior to joining the Trump administration, Deputy Interior Secretary David Bernhardt has continually undermined science and tried to shut the public out of decision-making while making it easier for energy companies to drill, mine and pollute. Here are some of the darkest spots on his resume:

• As Zinke’s deputy, has personally overseen efforts to eliminate environmental protections and suggested the agency will aggressively cut protections under the Endangered Species Act.
• Exemplifies the Trump administration’s denial-and-delay approach to climate change, even as the body of scientific evidence grows showing it is a dire threat to public lands, America and the world at large. Bernhardt has suggested he doesn’t have any obligation to address climate change, and even gone so far as to erase internal memoranda and recommendations about preparing the U.S. for the threats.
• Was a catalyst behind the recent Trump administration decision to roll back key protections for the greater sage-grouse and push to allow drilling and mining in their wildlife-rich habitat. The sage-grouse plans are considered the product of one of the largest landscape conservation efforts in U.S. history, with broad and varied stakeholders, but they were fiercely opposed by oil and gas interests—including some of Bernhardt’s former clients.
• Has pushed intradepartmental rules some criticize as being designed to cherry-pick the science that goes into Interior policy and imposed arbitrary limits on environmental analysis and public input concerning how public lands and waters are managed.
• Both as a high-ranking Interior staffer under President George W. Bush and as an energy lobbyist, pushed drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He once even presided over a federal report that misrepresented science to downplay threats to caribou herds.
• Has ethically problematic ties to oil and other corporate interests. For example, Bernhardt previously lobbied on behalf of a number of energy and mining companies to obstruct rules that cut air pollution and to increase oil and gas drilling.

Outgoing Sen. Dean Heller's pro-drilling record and failure to recognize the existential threats arising from climate change are extremely worrisome, and we’ll have our hands full holding him accountable if he’s nominated to lead the Interior Department. Among the deeds concerning us:

• Opposed President Obama’s protection of both Basin & Range and Gold Butte National Monuments in Heller’s home state of Nevada and then endorsed Interior Secretary Zinke’s recommendation that the monument’s boundaries be unlawfully reduced—a move opposed by 70 percent of Nevadans. He has also introduced and cosponsored legislation to gut the Antiquities Act and prevent the designation of new national monuments both in Nevada and across the country.
• Voted for measures to expedite drilling on America’s public lands and reduce public input on decisions around those projects. These included a vote in favor of a tax bill that invited oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. 
• Has pushed to strip protection from dozens of wilderness study areas in Nevada. Wilderness study areas are lands that have been identified as good candidates for future wilderness protection—a status that can only be awarded by congressional action—and, in the meantime, are managed by agencies like the Forest Service to maintain their existing wild characteristics.
• Has resisted efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions and dissembled on whether or not climate change is happening. Heller falsely claimed in 2015 that mankind’s role in climate change is “up for debate” and voted against a proposed amendment that would have acknowledged climate change and human contribution to it. In recent years, as the political tide turned, Heller claimed not to be a climate denier but continued toeing the science-agnostic line to avoid taking any meaningful action. 
• Consistently sides with fossil fuel and other special interests on efforts to cut common-sense environmental safeguards and make it easier to pollute. This includes voting to block rules that reduce methane pollution from oil and gas operations on public lands. 
• Opposed conservation plans to protect the greater sage-grouse and has signaled support for Trump administration measures that would imperil the bird and 350 other species its sagebrush ecosystem supports across 11 western states.
• Once expressed support for demonstrations orchestrated by infamous Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his self-styled militia. Heller referred to protesters aligned with Bundy, who sought to avoid paying fees to graze his cattle on land managed by the Bureau of Land Management, as “patriots.” The Bundy family later staged an armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon.