Ryan Zinke approved by Senate as Interior secretary

Nevada U.S. Sens. Dean Heller, a Republican, and Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat, voted to confirm President Donald Trump’s pick to oversee the department that manages public lands, most of which are in West.

“I do not believe it’s a hoax”, Zinke said, in contrast with the president, who previously tweeted that it’s a “hoax” created by China. Republican senator Johnny Isakson did not vote.

Seven Republicans and eight Democrats have said they’re running for their party’s respective nomination to compete in the special election.

After a months-long confirmation process, Ryan Zinke is officially taking charge of the U.S. Department of the Interior. “I’ll be able to work with him”, she told E&E News.

But some Democratic lawmakers remained concerned about Zinke’s priorities and how his approach to public lands might jibe with the White House’s positions.

“Ryan Zinke will bring much-needed balance to the management of our nation’s land and natural resources”.

Though Zinke says he opposes privatization, he also vociferously supports the Trump administration’s energy agenda, which includes leasing wide swaths of public lands to the fossil fuel industry.

Confirmation required a majority of votes from the 100-member Senate, and the vote largely followed party lines, 68 to 31.

But some environmental groups aren’t as satisfied with Zinke’s selection.

Zinke was among hundreds of state lawmakers who signed a letter in 2010 saying climate change was a unsafe threat that needed to be addressed with a new energy policy focused on renewable energy sources. “He understands it, he understands its people”, Murkowski said.

While that puts him at curious odds with Utah’s push to gain control of more than 30 million acres of federal land within its borders, Zinke earned a stamp of approval from top elected officials in Utah because of his track record supporting multiple uses of public lands.

“The Gateway Pacific Terminal is incredibly important to Montana, the Crow, and even to the blue-collar workers in Washington state because it is literally the gateway to economic prosperity and rising out of poverty”, he said last May.

Following the Zinke vote, the Senate broke a filibuster on Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Dr. Tomorrow, the Senate plans to consider former Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s (R) nomination as Energy secretary.