Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke claims one-third of his workforce is disloyal to him and President Trump/DOI
In sports parlance it's called an unforced error. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke made one the other day when he was captured stating that roughly one-third of his vast workforce is not loyal to him or President Trump. The comment quickly was condemned, including by some who wagered that the percentage was much higher.
U.S. Rep Raúl M. Grijalva, the ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, called Tuesday for Secretary Zinke to apologize.
“Secretary Zinke should clarify his comments and apologize to the public servants he is supposed to be leading. He often refers to his military service, so he should be well aware that loyalty is earned and you don’t earn it, or deserve it, with divisive comments like these," the congressman said.
The comment was made Monday to the National Petroleum Council in Washington, D.C.
"I got 30 percent of the crew that's not loyal to the flag," he said in a story distributed by The Associated Press.
On a Facebook page for National Park Service employees, some ventured that the percentage was higher than 30 percent, in some cases much higher, while others said their loyalty was to the agency mission and not elected officials.
According to the Sierra Club, Secretary Zinke went further, telling the oil industry leaders that U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service staff “hated people to a degree.”
The secretary also said Interior staff spend too much time analyzing an issue and not acting on it, and he intends to end that by reorganizing his department to put the decision-makers out in the West where decisions involving energy development and endangered species are most centered.
At the Sierra Club, Rob Vessels, who represents the group's Military Outdoors Campaign, said the secretary needs to reexamine his military background, rather than citing it to explain how he's going to manage the Interior Department and the public lands it oversees.
“Ryan Zinke is all too quick to tout his patriotism for serving in the military, but he fails to recognize the patriotism in protecting America’s public lands," said Mr. Vessels. "Serving our country is patriotic, but so is working on behalf of the American people at the Department of the Interior, so is protecting our public lands for everyone to enjoy, and so is calling for our government to be better at working for every single person here. Given the groups Zinke has chosen to speak to and meet with as secretary, we know where his loyalties currently reside. I, and millions of Americans wish that it was with us the people, and not with the fossil fuel industry.”
The military symbolism was also dismissed by the Center for Western Priorities, where Executive Director Jennifer Rokala said that, “Secretary Zinke clearly views our parks and public lands as a battlefield and himself as a general fighting on behalf of oil and gas companies. In the past two days, he has declared war on his own agency in front of oil executives and told clean energy groups that public lands are best suited for drilling.
"Less than a year into the job, Secretary Zinke has abandoned Western values in an attempt to drill, mine and log our public lands at all costs.”
Comments
The news at Interior just seems to go from bad to worse ...
Mr. Zinke seems to have forgoten the mission of the department.
John Muir would be vomiting if he were alive and Teddy Roosevelt would be kicking Stinke's rear end. A guy who was guilty of using government jets for private affairs, wait, that's half of Trump's cabinet. Never mind.
"Not loyal to the flag" ??
This is an amazing statement, and completely untrue. What empty headed, toxic person told him this? Certainly he has not met the 30%, or even 1% of the workforce of the National Park Service.
My politics are fairly left-wing, and so those people in the National Park Service who are not conservatives are pretty clear with me on their attitudes. The National Park Service across the spectrum are deeply loyal to the United States of America. I like to think i am open enough with NPS conservatives that few would hold back an assessment, and again my belief is they are as loyal as those more liberal. Overwhelmingly, National Park Service people believe parks and the Service are not for the Left or the Middle or the Right, but for all Americans. These people honor the places and history of America.
I am trying to think this through now with all the cynicism i can muster, after all of course every organization includes SOME spoilers, SOME people who would rather complain than do the work, SOME who have glib hostile throwaway comments about any and everything, even America and the Flag.
This thought experiment says that there may not be ONE-in-a-hundred who are not loyal to the flag.
These people believe in the United States, believe in the laws of the United States, and believe in faithfully upholding the United States and those laws.
In fact a great deal of the morale problem in the Service is not because of cynicism, but from idealism.
Park people believe the parks represent the best of America. When there are problems due to lack of funding, with lack of training, and lack of aggressive recruitment, it makes them upset. They are not stupid. They know all the federal government has problems. They even know that all America has social conflicts such as widespread sexual harrassment. But when they see any bit of it in the National Park Service, or any bit of slowness in dealing with it, it is intolerable. Because they believe in the ideal. They believe with the Constitution, that for every problem in America it can be solved and America made a more perfect union.
Mr. Secretary this is not an organization where 30% are not loyal to the flag.
National Park Service people are the believers, and they are the believers in all Americans, and all Visitors.
Disloyal to the flag for not laying down for oil and gas because of the president? Most educated people know that oil and gas production and use are bad for the planet. The Secretary's interests do not seem to advance conservation of places or land, and maybe he should lay off labeling people.
Disloyal to Trump and himself - sure. Most of the NPS eployees I know aree intensely loyal to the resources that they are sworn to protect. The man needs to learn that TRUMP does not equal FLAG, does not equal COUNTRY, does not equal MOST IMPORTANT PERSON OR THING.
According to its own mission statement, "The National Park Service preserves unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the National Park System for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations." Nowhere in that mission statement are the names Trump or Zinke, and nowhere in that mission statement are any words about wringing out profit by depleting resources.
D-2--
As I noted in my comment on another thread, I interpert Zinke's "crew loyal to the flag" as meaning "the flag" as in flag officer & command, not as in stars & stripes US flag. Zinke was Navy, and flag officers command task forces or fleets, and thus have _their_ flags indicating which ship they're on, as in flagship. Googling it, US flag officers are not confined to the Navy, and they require nomination by the President and confirmation by the Senate (USC 10).
That said, I don't think Zinke was going for any particular precision in that sentence, merely ingratiating himself with his oil & gas executive audience by communicating contempt for either "bureaucrats" or DOI natural resource professionals.
And I certainly agree with you: in my experience virtually all of the NPS colleagues I interact with are loyal to the country, the constitution, and the idea of the Park Service from the Organic Act.
The idea of compulsory loyalty and patriotism is, on all levels, wholly un-American. The idea that government employees are required to have or show fealty to appointed overlords is also wholly at odds with having a competent and professional bureaucracy.