Expect a change in congressional oversight of the Interior Department and its bureaus under the new Congress and Rep. Raúl Grijalva/House Democrats

With Democrats gaining the majority in the House of Representatives, expect to see more inquiries into how the Interior Department is run, perhaps a slowdown or halt in the development of new management plans for Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments, greater oversight into reorganization of Interior, and more light of day for parks-related legislation offered by House Democrats.

Those changes in matters before the House Natural Resources Committee can be expected because Rep. Raúl Manuel Grijalva very likely will replace Republican Rob Bishop of Utah as chairman of the committee and be the one who decides the committee's business.

Looking back over the months, topics Rep. Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat who easily won re-election Tuesday, has tried to bring attention to include:

* Efforts by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to revise management plans for both Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears.

On October 1 the congressman and more than 60 House colleagues, noting that the legality of President Trump's move to resize the two monuments remains in question before the courts, wrote Secretary Zinke with a request that he halt work on any environmental impact statement or monument management plan being prepared for the two monuments.

"To move forward on producing an environmental impact statement and monument management plan ... is a waste of time and taxpayer dollars and a transparent attempt to rush forward an illegal disposition of public lands before the courts have ruled," they wrote.

* A lack of transparency concerning Interior plans for reorganizing that agency that oversees most of America's public landscapes.

While Secretary Zinke hopes to have the reorganizaton up and running by July 1, Rep. Grijalva has criticized the rapid approach being employed by Interior.

“Secretary Zinke and Deputy Secretary (David) Bernhardt are smashing the Interior Department to pieces and telling employees to pick up the mess," the congressman said last week. "The organizational plan described here is unworkable for a number of reasons and demands oversight that Republicans on this committee have conspicuously failed to provide. This should not be the first time Democrats on the committee of jurisdiction learn about these plans, and should we hold a House majority in January, we will get to the bottom of why this work was done without congressional awareness.”

* Legislation that would end the prospect of uranium mining near Grand Canyon National Park by creating a million-acre national monument, the Greater Grand Canyon Heritage National Monument.

It was a year ago that Rep. Grijalva pressed Rep. Bishop with no success to have the Natural Resources Committee to consider his legislation for the new monument.

* Efforts to weaken or toss out the Endangered Species Act.

When the Trump administration announced plans to significantly change the act, Congressman Grijalva said, “The Trump administration doesn’t seem to know any other way to handle the environment than as an obstacle to industry profits, and House Republicans don’t seem to know any other response than standing around and applauding bad decisions. If a single company can make a single dollar from the destruction or displacement of an endangered species, it’s full speed ahead. The public doesn’t demand this; this is part of the endless special favors the White House and Department of the Interior are willing to do for their industry friends. It’s reprehensible and it needs to be opposed and reversed.” 

* Clarity on Secretary Zinke's decision to dispatch Park Service law enforcement personnel to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona and Amistad National Recreation Area in Texas along the U.S.-Mexico border in the name of national security.

Rep Grijalva sent a list of questions to Secretary Zinke after the order was made. They ranged from the cost of the operation to whether the Department of Homeland Security requested the assistance.

* Whether Secretary Zinke runs his department in a totally ethical manner.

"Secretary Zinke ignores the rules when it suits him, and Republicans in Congress have shown no interest in conducting any oversight of his highly controversial tenure,” Rep. Grijalva said after Interior's Office of Inspector General released a report on the secretary's travel expenses.  “People in federal leadership positions are supposed to set a higher standard than this, and Congress is supposed to enforce that standard. Instead Republicans in Washington have aided and abetted Secretary Zinke’s embarrassing behavior every step of the way. He needs to stop treating federal resources as his personal fiefdom.”

* Proposed legislation that would give a 60-year lease to CBI Acquisitions to operate Caneel Bay Resort at Virgin Islands National Park.

During a committee hearing on legislation calling for such a lease, Rep. Grijalva asked Gary Engle, CEO of Stoneleigh Capital, the private equity firm that controls CBI Acquisitions, why his negotiations with the National Park Service were unable to reach a more usual concessionaire agreement over the resort. Engle simply said the talks never gained any substance. (Traveler footnote: A Traveler Freedom of Information Act request for Park Service records of those talks that was to have been answered this past April remains pending.)

Rep. Grijalva also was unsuccessful in amending the legislation, which could die due to inaction unless addressed during the lame duck session, to give the Park Service authority to ensure that any construction or management activities at the resort or the 170 acres it sets on "are consistent with all applicable laws and policies of the National Park Service.’’ 

The Democrat also called on Rep. Bishop, unsuccessfully, to hold a full committee hearing into sexual harassment and other types of workplace harassment at Interior and its agencies. Grijalva also spoke out against Interior's directive to the Park Service to relax regulations on hunting predators in national preserves in Alaska.

What also can be expected under Democratic control of the House is strong ongoing support for greatly reducing, if not eliminating, the estimated $11.6 billion maintenance backlog across the National Park System. There has been bipartisan support on that front this year.

Watchdog groups Wednesday morning immediately began calling for greater oversight of Interior.

"We call on the new Congress to hold accountable Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Interior Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt, and other Interior political appointees whose actions have undermined the public’s trust and hurt public lands for the past two years," said a release from Western Values Project, a Whitefish, Montana, organization. "Last night’s defeat puts the Trump administration and its allies in the House and Senate on notice: their attacks on public lands are not only bad policy, they are also bad politics.

"... The last Congress failed to fulfill their duty to conduct oversight of Interior," the group added. "As a result, Secretary Zinke has largely acted with impunity, leading to at least 15 investigations by the department’s watchdog - and no meaningful reviews by Congress."

Investigations into the secretary are examining include one into his possible involvement in a land deal with the Halliburton chairman, and another into whether he abused his public office for personal gain and possible abuse of his office to benefit political allies, including a Utah politician whose land benefited from President Trump's redrawing of the Grand Staircase-Escalante borders.