It’s been a rough year for Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke

...The start of the new year has been rocky for Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke. He’s on the hot seat for exempting Florida from the Trump administration’s expanded oil and gas offshore drilling proposal without bothering to notify his boss, and for what appears to be a failure to disclose an investment in a Montana gun company, a possible conflict of interest. Those stumbles added to other missteps that have befallen the secretary during the 10 months since he took control of the department, which manages vast federal lands including monuments, parks, refuges as well as abundant natural resources. He booked a $12,000 flight home on a charter jet owned by an oil executive and other private flights to island-hop in the Caribbean. He billed taxpayers more than $6,000 for a helicopter trip he took to rush to a horseback ride with Vice President Pence. Zinke said that criticism that the flights were a misuse of funds was “a wild departure from reality.” But his office admitted error last month after Newsweek revealed that Zinke used nearly $40,000 from a wildfire preparedness fund to pay for flights. The revelation came at a time when state and federal officials in California had just finished fighting two massive wildfires at enormous expense. Zinke’s office declined to respond to questions for this article, but has challenged allegations in some reports. A report this month said Zinke failed to disclose that he owned about a thousand shares of a weapons company located in his hometown, Whitefish, Montana. As Trump’s Interior nominee, Zinke was required to disclose assets worth more than $1,000, but did not, the Huffington Post reported. But Heather Swift, Zinke’s spokeswoman, said the stock Zinke purchased in PROOF Research is worth less than $500. Larry Murphy, chief executive of the company, confirmed that Zinke still owns stock. It was reported this month that President Trump was deeply frustrated by Zinke’s promise to Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) that new drilling leases would not be offered off the state’s coast, but people in the White House with some knowledge of the situation say the secretary’s job appears secure...more