Exclusive: US official appeared to delay protections for endangered species at behest of oil group

[Judi Lynn]

The energy friendly agenda inside Trump’s interior department is revealed in records obtained by the Guardian and the watchdog groups Documented and the Western Values Project

Jimmy Tobias
Fri 20 Apr 2018 06.00 EDT Last modified on Fri 20 Apr 2018 16.36 EDT


The Texas hornshell is a sleek green-grey mussel that once thrived in the Rio Grande watershed, its habitat stretching from southern New Mexico down into the arid Texas borderlands. Some of its habitat happens to overlap with rich deposits of oil and gas.

Amid a long-term decline in its range, the Obama administration in 2016 proposed to declare the mussel an endangered species. Upon taking office, however, the Trump administration changed tack.

A top interior department official, Vincent DeVito, appears to take credit for helping to delay federal protections for the species at the behest of fossil-fuel industry groups, one of several examples of his willingness to prioritize the needs of extractive industries with business before the government, according to obtained by the Guardian and Pacific Standard as well as and the , both watchdog groups.

. . .

Yet DeVito is now emerging as a critical player. At a speech last summer to Americans for Prosperity, a political advocacy group backed by the Koch brothers, DeVito described his role at the department as “the office of energy dominance”. Officially, there is no such office, though “energy dominance” has become a slogan for the interior department’s .

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/20/vincent-devito-trump-interior-department-endangered-species-delay-oil-industry



Vincent DeVito