Interior pick Zinke on climate change: 'I don't believe it's a hoax'

Declaring himself a "Teddy Roosevelt Republican," Donald Trump’s choice for interior secretary sought the middle ground on a host of issues at his confirmation hearing Tuesday — including declaring that climate change is real while insisting that the science on humans’ role may not be settled.

"I do not believe it's a hoax," Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke said when asked about climate change — offering at least a tacit contrast to Trump, who has said it is .


Zinke, a Republican former Navy SEAL, said the federal government should keep ownership of its vast land holdings, but should heed Western residents’ anger about Washington’s sway over their lives. He defended the need for expanded oil, gas and coal production, saying that “we're going to need an economy that grows,” but wouldn’t pledge to head off big increases in the royalties that miners must pay. And he talked about natural gas exports as a potential tool to weaken Vladimir Putin, without explicitly opposing Trump’s hopes for warm relations with Russia.

Zinke got genteel treatment from Democrats on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, along with warm words from Republican Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski, a scathing critic of the Interior Department’s actions in her state of Alaska.

“I think he's doing a good job handling himself,” Murkowski said during a break in the hearing. “I think he's been very direct and I've appreciated that."

Zinke had earlier won favor with Donald Trump Jr., the president-elect’s son and an avid trophy hunter, in part because he opposed efforts by some congressional Republicans to sell off federal land.

During Tuesday’s hearing, Zinke gave shout-outs to leading conservationists from the late 1800s and early 1900s, including Sierra Club founder John Muir and Forest Service chief Gifford Pinchot — and, of course, Roosevelt. "Teddy Roosevelt had the courage to look 100 years forward,” Zinke said. “I think we need to have the courage today to look 100 years forward and look back and say we did it right."

These are key moments from the hearing:



Zinke: Climate change is no ‘hoax’

Breaking with one bit of Trump rhetoric, Zinke said he believes that climate change is real and that humans play a role. "I do not believe it's a hoax," he said in response to a question from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Trump has notably disagreed, tweeting in late 2012 that “the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”

But Zinke stopped short of full-throated acceptance of climate science. He agreed that the climate was changing, and that humans have had an influence, but he said "there's debate" over the extend of that influence.

When pressed on whether he'd allow fossil fuel development on public lands, Zinke said, "we have to have an economy."

Sanders cut in: "I'll take that as a yes, there will be fossil development on public lands."

Later, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) pointed to a 2010 letter in which Zinke called climate change a threat needing immediate attention and asked if Zinke's position had changed.

"I want to be honest with you," Zinke said. "We both agree that the climate's changing. We both agree that man is an influence."

"A major influence," Franken injected.

"I'm not an expert in this field," Zinke responded.

"To me that's a cop-out," Franken said, adding, "I'm not a doctor but I have to make healthcare decisions."



Zinke finds a way to ding Russia

Zinke also separated himself a bit from Trump's talk about warmer relations with Russia.

“If we want to check Russia, let’s do it with natural gas," he said, alluding to Moscow’s leverage over the rest of Europe as a major gas supplier. Republicans in Congress have pressed for expanding U.S. natural gas exports as a way to weaken Putin's influence in the continent, especially after Russia's 2014 invasion of Ukraine and seizure of Crimea.

The topic came up as Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) pressed him on the limits the Interior Department is imposing on methane pollution from natural gas drilling. Zinke responded by waxing poetic on the lost opportunity created by the leaking of methane during the extraction process.

"We’re venting a lot, and we’re wasting energy, and that is troubling me," Zinke said. "The amount of venting in North Dakota alone almost exceeds what we get out of the fields. Let us build a system that recaptures what is being wasted. And that’s an enormous opportunity geopolitically as well.”



'Zero tolerance' for sexual harassment

Zinke pledged to have "zero tolerance" for sexual harassment in his department, in response to questions from Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) that touched on Trump's comments on the issue.

Duckworth said Zinke had not rebuked past statements by Trump that critics said blamed women for sexual harassment in the military. "How can we be sure that you just won't look the other way in dealing with this issue of sexual assault at the National Park Service like you did with your own potential boss, the president-elect?" she asked.

"I take issues of sexual assault harassment absolutely seriously," Zinke responded, promising to "go out to the front line" and talk with staff about such issues. He added that "on the sexual harassment issue, they have to know leadership at the top and the bottom, that we have zero tolerance."

Trump has taken criticism for comments he has made on the issue, including a May 2013 tweet in which he wrote: "26,000 unreported sexual [assaults] in the military-only 238 convictions. What did these geniuses expect when they put men & women together?"



Zinke defends vote to ease federal land sales

Despite his opposition to wholesale sell-offs of federal land, Zinke defended the vote he took early this month for a House rule that would make it easier to transfer government land to other parties.

He portrayed the rule as a sign of the anger and mistrust that constituents feel over federal land management.

"It was an indicator of how upset people are about our land policy at that moment, particularly if you are in Utah, Nevada, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana," he said. But he added that the rule "has no weight unless it’s executed. I think it’s a shot across the bow that we have to do something."

“My No. 1 is trust,” he said. “I have to go out there and restore trust.”

The rule would eliminate the need to calculate the budget impact of a transfer of federal land, making it easier to pass such legislation. The vote has drawn criticism from green groups and concern from sportsmen’s groups that back Zinke for the post.

Calls on feds to ‘defer’ to states on managing monuments

Shooting down one idea that has taken hold among some Republicans, Zinke said he sees no legal way to rescind the protections that President Barack Obama has offered to vast amounts of Western lands under the Antiquities Act of 1906.

But he also left open the door to offering concessions on management decisions to states whose leaders object to the federal government declaring national monuments within their borders.

"States that like their monuments, the state's comfortable with monument, I would be an advocate," Zinke said. "If the state is upset with a monument, and has a plan different from what we've done, I think we should defer a lot of that to the state."

Obama has used the 1906 law to create 550 million acres of new monuments on existing public lands and waters, enraging many Republican members of Congress who characterize the moves as a "land grab." In December, he designated 1.35 million acres in southeastern Utah over the opposition of local government and state officials.

Utah Rep. Rob Bishop, the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, has openly wondered whether a new president could rescind a predecessor’s monument declarations.



Review of coal-leasing prices may continue

Zinke backed efforts to ensure coal companies pay appropriate royalties and clean up the land they mine, but stopped short of specifically backing Obama administration programs on those fronts.

The administration's ongoing review of its coal program included a moratorium on new leases, and Interior this month released a road map for its review to determine whether to update its regulations and the royalty rates it charges.

"I think the review is good," Zinke said when the committee's top Democrat, Maria Cantwell of Washington, asked if he would stop it. "I don't know the specifics of that review but I think we should always look at our energy portfolio with an objectiveness."

She also asked him: "You don't have an objection to taxpayers getting a fair value...?"

"I think taxpayers should always get a fair value," Zinke said.

Cantwell asked whether that includes coal.

Zinke: "Including our coal, wind and all the above."

Zinke promises to do right by Alaska

Zinke committed to Murkowski that he would review every regulation that "takes lands and waters off Alaska" out of oil and gas development, responding to a litany of criticisms she offered at the outset of the hearing.

"Yes," Zinke said. "We have to understand, we need an economy. If we don’t have an economy as a country, then the rest of it doesn’t matter. Alaska is different."

Murkowski, a fierce critic of outgoing Secretary Sally Jewell, told Zinke that “to state that Alaska has had a difficult or a tenuous relationship with the outgoing administration is probably more than an understatement.”

Murkowski noted that the administration has blocked new offshore drilling in the Arctic's Chukchi and Beaufort seas, converted coastal plains into de-facto wilderness as part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and refused to allow the construction of a one-lane gravel emergency access road from an isolated fishing village through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.

"We've lost access to lands and to waters that even President [Jimmy] Carter had promised us would be open to us,” she said. “We've had our longstanding right to manage wildlife within our borders ripped away. We've seen projects halted through the delay or the denial of vital permits."

America’s only hope: Growth

Much like Trump, who has promised to solve many budgetary problems by spurring a huge surge of economic growth, Zinke said the U.S. can pay for its infrastructure needs as long as the economy keeps expanding.

Throughout his testimony, Zinke returned to the need for more infrastructure to solve America's problems, from water infrastructure to the maintenance backlog in our national parks. When Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) asked how he would pay for it, Zinke noted that most of the federal budget is tied up in entitlement spending, which leaves few options.

“We’re not going to be able to cut our way out of the problems we have, nor are we going to be able to tax our way out,” he said. “The only hope we have of America is to grow our way out. And we can. Energy is part of it, innovation is part of it. We're going to need an economy that grows, we can compete, we can dominate. God has given us so much.”



Zinke backs Smokey Bear

Franken lightened the mood a little when he pressed Zinke on comments about Smokey Bear and wildfire.

"I want to get something clear," Franken asked. "Smokey the Bear isn’t real, right?"

“He’s real to me, sir," Zinke said.

"That might be disqualifying," the senator replied.

