Zinke Meets W. Environmental Groups, Promises "Grand Pivot" To Conservation, Away From Oil & Gas
Whatever, Secretary Horsey-Flag.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke yesterday huddled with more than two dozen conservation group leaders, including some of his staunchest critics, in his latest bid to generate both ideas and support for his ambitious departmental reorganization plans. He got an earful, and may have gained some goodwill.
During a get-together at Interior headquarters that lasted nearly two hours, the conservationists and sportsmen started talking reorganization and branched out from there. Coming more than a year into the former Navy SEAL's occasionally combative tenure, the high-level meeting proved remarkably cordial and substantive, participants say (E&E News PM, March 16).
"The secretary is very much crowd-sourcing ideas for the reorganization," said Interior press secretary Heather Swift. "It was a reorg-focused meeting, from the conservation angle." Zinke "stayed longer than he was scheduled to," Swift added. "He opened it up by speaking for about 25 minutes, and then answered questions for about an hour and a half."
The participants, who gathered around an extended U-shaped set of tables arrayed in the so-called North Penthouse atop Interior's seventh floor, welcomed the opportunity. Steve Moyer, vice president for government affairs at Trout Unlimited, said Zinke used the term "grand pivot" several times to indicate a change of focus away from energy development and toward conservation is planned at Interior over the next few years.
EDIT
https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060081995
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