Zinke tells greens he'll make 'grand pivot' to conservation

Michael Doyle and Scott Streater

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. 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. "The fundamental message to us was, 'We did what we needed to do the first year,' in terms of things like energy dominance, monument reviews, those kinds of things. And basically, the message was he knows those weren't very popular with us," Moyer said in an interview. He added, "I was glad to hear of a change of direction from Mr. Zinke." Interior officials identified 25 conservation and sportsmen organization leaders as participants, with groups represented ranging from the National Wildlife Federation and Defenders of Wildlife to Trout Unlimited and the National Wild Turkey Federation...MORE 

 Zinke plans a "grand pivot" towards conservation at Interior. That choice of words by Zinke may be telling. Notice he did say say there would be more emphasis on conservation, or a turn towards more balance or even just a plain old pivot. No, Zinke calls this a "grand" pivot. I'm afraid many of us will not find this to be so grand.

There was also some bad news for those seeking changes in national monuments in states other than Utah. 

Zinke said at the meeting the department isn't considering any more changes to national monument boundaries unless President Trump says otherwise, according to several participants.Although Trump rolled back more than 2 million acres of monument protections from two sites in Utah in December, he has not acted on Zinke's proposal to shrink other monuments in Nevada, Oregon and California