WaPo Editorial Board: Is Ryan Zinke cynical or incompetent?
Source: Washington Post
Is Ryan Zinke cynical or incompetent?
By Editorial Board January 24 at 7:33 PM
IS INTERIOR SECRETARY Ryan Zinke cynical or incompetent? Those are the options after his capricious treatment of states that object to his plan to open oil and gas drilling off their coasts. (There’s also: (c) both of the above.)
Two weeks ago, Mr. Zinke suddenlyannounced that he was exempting Florida from his plan to open practically all of the country’s coastline to offshore drilling. The surprise came only a few days after Mr. Zinke rolled out the drilling plan, and immediately after a brief, personal meeting Mr. Zinke had in Tallahassee with Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R), a likely GOP Senate candidate who would benefit politically from securing an exemption. Meanwhile, opposition among coastal governors is widespread, with Democrats and Republicans alike objecting that Mr. Zinke did not give them overnight, face-to-face service like he did Mr. Scott.
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It looks as if Mr. Zinke gave Florida exclusive attention and a hasty exemption to help Mr. Scott in his coming Senate election. Then, because the Trump administration is still committed to a drill-baby-drill policy, the interior secretary subjected every other coastal governor to a longer and less responsive process that may or may not lead to further exemptions.
The alternative explanation is no less damning. Mr. Zinke may not have anticipated the blowback that giving Mr. Scott extraordinary help would elicit. This includes possibly potent legal objections that the interior secretary’s decision-making was arbitrary and the drilling plan therefore invalid. The firestorm, which a rational deliberative process would have prevented, deterred Mr. Zinke from offering any more on-the-spot exemptions.
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/is-ryan-zinke-cynical-or-incompetent/2018/01/24/80055fd0-0146-11e8-8acf-ad2991367d9d_story.html
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