The Trump administration has threatened a range of natural resources, but the capital quagmire it promised to drain abides. While the president lost one swamp creature in recently departed Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke remains. And the former Montana congressman bears a remarkable resemblance to Pruitt in his approach to established personal and policy standards, which seems to be that they were made to be broken.

Like his onetime EPA counterpart, Zinke has accumulated close to a dozen inquiries into his propensity to use public resources for private ends. By undoing rules protecting the country’s wilderness and wildlife, he is determined to let others do the same.

Over the year and a half since he literally rode into office, Zinke has become a focus of at least 11 investigations by the Interior Department’s inspector general and others, according to the conservation group the Center for Western Priorities. It took four of Zinke’s predecessors a total of 16 years to reach the same number.

Like Pruitt and former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, Zinke has a noted tendency, at least when not on horseback, to choose modes of travel that are especially costly to taxpayers. The department watchdog has criticized the lack of oversight of his travel and questioned a charter flight that cost more than $12,000.

The inspector general recently opened another investigation into Zinke’s role in a Montana land deal involving the chairman of Halliburton. The oil services company stands to benefit from such policies as Zinke’s push to expand offshore drilling.

Accidentally released documents related to the department’s reductions of protected lands suggest a similar zeal for exploitation. They show officials dismissing the recreational value of the sites and plotting to resume logging in places such as the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument on the California-Oregon border, according to the Washington Post. Meanwhile, the department has intensified a push to roll back endangered species protections.

Contrary to this sustained attack on preservation, we’re asked to believe that the secretary may support restoring the Hetch Hetchy to its natural state. Zinke met with a group opposed to the reservoir this week in what looked like an attempt to taunt San Franciscans and others who depend on its water. Given its history, however, this administration looks about as likely to drain the Hetch Hetchy as it is to drain the swamp.

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