Tag Archives: Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke
Gov. Cooper leads bipartisan effort to oppose East Coast seismic testing, offshore drilling
Following last month’s announcement that the Trump Administration authorized airgun use in waters off the East Coast, Governor Roy Cooper and a group of bipartisan governors urged Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to prohibit harmful seismic testing and offshore drilling in the Atlantic Ocean. “As the governors of states on the Atlantic seaboard, we write >click to read letter< to reiterate our strong opposition to seismic airgun surveys and oil and gas drilling off our coasts,”,, Along with Cooper, the letter was signed by Governor Charlie Baker of Massachusetts; Governor John Carney of Delaware; Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York; Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland; Governor Dannel Malloy of Connecticut; Governor Henry McMaster of South Carolina; Governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey; Governor Ralph Northam of Virginia; and Governor Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island. >click to read<15:44
Offshore wind developers ante up at auction of leases near Block Island
In what is sure to be seen as an affirmation of their industry’s prospects, a scrum of offshore wind developers is poised to pay an unprecedented amount of money for the latest set of leases being auctioned off in federal ocean waters near Rhode Island and Massachusetts. When the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management suspended its auction Thursday night for the three leases located in waters about 51 miles southeast of Block Island, the bids for each had reached between $91 million and $101 million — more than twice the highest amount paid in the past for an offshore wind lease in the United States and a range that compares favorably to payments for oil and gas projects. The bureau, part of the U.S. Department of the Interior, described the day as “historic.” In a tweet, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said, “We have something big going on off the coast of Massachusetts.” >click to read<10:13
Trump officials drafted plans to eliminate marine monument off New England
Senior U.S. Department of Interior officials prepared last fall to eliminate the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument off the Atlantic coast—even as they had yet to agree on the public justifications for doing so, according to newly disclosed internal documents. Interior last week accidentally released thousands of pages of unredacted internal emails in response to Freedom of Information Act requests.,, In a 22 August 2017 email, Interior official Randy Bowman, who led the monument review process, drafted two proposals: one in which Trump would revoke the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts monument and the other in which he would amend the proclamation to remove restrictions on commercial fishing. On 14 September, Bowman suggested in an email that impacts to the fishing industry were not a major consideration in revoking the monument’s status. >click to read<18:26
Administration looks offshore for wind energy boom
The Trump administration is “bullish” about offshore wind, working with governors in the Northeast to transform what was once a fringe and costly investment into America’s newest energy-producing industry. “When the president said energy dominance, it was made without reference to a type of energy,” Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke told the Washington Examiner in an interview. “It was making sure as a country we are American energy first and that includes offshore wind. There is enormous opportunity, especially off the East Coast, for wind. I am very bullish.” On a recent tour of coastal states, Zinke found “magnitudes” more interest in offshore wind than oil and natural gas drilling. >click to read<11:20
Offshore wind rush is irresponsible, Turbine farms threaten the future of fishing
In an April opinion piece, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke wrote that “affordable, reliable, and abundant American energy drives domestic jobs and prosperity.” If by “drives domestic jobs and prosperity” Zinke meant “threatens the very existence of New England fishermen,” then the East Farm Commercial Fisheries Center of Rhode Island (which represents Rhode Island commercial fishermen) would agree.,,, The rush to approve and build these massive projects is irresponsible. The survival of the fishing industry is now dependent on a review process that has been kicked into high gear and is lacking the research and data necessary to make informed and balanced decisions. For example, in its haste to approve these massive projects, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management significantly underestimated the intensity of the fishing effort taking place in the Vineyard Wind project area and seriously undervalued the fisheries, especially the squid fishery. As a result, Vineyard Wind plans to construct its project in a prime squid fishing area. >click to read<08:01
Long Island: Wind farm meetings scheduled – Politicians and fishermen have doubts about visibility and impediments to fishing
New York State on Monday will hold a public meeting in Southampton to discuss its blueprint for wind energy and the recently released federal government call for wind-energy projects along the shore of practically all of Long Island, including the East End.,, The South Fork is also home to the single greatest force in opposition to offshore wind: hundreds of fishermen who see the turbine structures and undersea cables as impediments to fishing. The Long Island Commercial Fishing Association has already joined a lawsuit contesting the federal government’s auction>click to read< 09:41
Zinke promises to ‘partner’ with oil industry, as offshore drilling opponents push back
Opponents of the Trump administration’s offshore drilling proposals pressed their case as a first 60-day public comment period drew to a close this week. Meanwhile Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, speaking at a Houston energy industry conference Tuesday, talked up the offshore plan and other administration moves to streamline drilling and infrastructure permits. The Department of Interior, Zinke said, “should be in the business of being a partner” with industry. >click to read<10:11
A new push to deregulate America’s oceans and backcountry
Recent decisions at the Interior and Commerce departments are opening the doors for more commercial exploitation of US fisheries and land resources. Advocates say the changes finally allow local voices to be heard. Critics say science is being ignored in favor of industry.,, But while these lands and waters may belong to every American, some feel particularly invested, including the roughnecks, loggers, fishermen, hunters, snowmobilers, and miners who eke out tough livings from rough but beautiful surroundings. Many of them, like New Hampshire boat owner, biologist, and former fishery council member Ellen Goethel, have watched resources grow increasingly off-limits under what she calls a “one-size-fits-all” conservation approach implemented by the Obama administration. >click to read< 11:48
Trump administration backs off Florida drilling proposal
In the face of vocal bipartisan opposition, the Trump administration said Tuesday it would not allow offshore oil and gas drilling in Florida waters, partially rolling back a proposal it unveiled last week. “We are not drilling off the coast of Florida,” said Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke at a hastily called news conference in the Tallahassee airport after meeting with Gov. Rick Scott. click here to read the story 19:08 
Congresswoman Aumua Amata pleased with recommendations on marine monuments
Congresswoman Aumua Amata is pleased with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s recommendation that President Trump consider expanding access to fishing in certain marine monuments. The Interior Secretary’s final recommendations include allowing traditional fishing and commercial fishing rights in three marine monuments, including the Pacific Remote Islands monument and the Rose Atoll monument. Aumua says in a statement this a major step forward in efforts to restore fishing rights in American Samoa. click here to read the story 10:50
Zinke backs shrinking more national monuments and shifting management of 10
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Tuesday called on President Trump to shrink a total of four national monuments and change the way six other land and marine sites are managed, a sweeping overhaul of how protected areas are maintained in the United States.,,, He also would revise the proclamations for those and the others to clarify that activities such as grazing, motorized vehicle use and commercial fishing should be allowed. The additional monuments affected include Northeast Canyons and Seamounts in the Atlantic Ocean; both Rose Atoll and the Pacific Remote Islands in the Pacific Ocean; New Mexico’s Organ Mountain-Desert Peaks and Rio Grande Del Norte; and Maine’s Katahdin Woods and Waters. click here to read the story 16:50
Storm brews over Maine’s monument offshore, too
Zinke has recommended that the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument – a 4,913-square-mile area of underwater canyons, thousand-year-old coral forests, and volcanic mountains on and beyond the southern edge of Georges Bank at the mouth of the Gulf of Maine – be opened to commercial fishing, a move proponents say would defeat its purpose.,, The heads of eight of the nation’s fisheries management councils – the industry-led bodies that implement fisheries regulations in federal waters – were already on record against the commercial fishing restrictions.,, Peter Shelley of the Conservation Law Foundation, an environmental attorney who is watching the case closely, strongly disagrees. click here to read the story 08:35
Op-Ed: Westerly Sun is complicit in environmental deception
I was disappointed to see that the Westerly Sun would put a misleading editorial authored by the ecoRI “news” staff on the front page of its free weekly publication, The Express, (Northeast Canyons and Seamounts on D.C. hit list, 9/7/17), as if it were truly factual news. (read it, click here) There is absolutely no factual basis for the claim that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s recommendations to President Trump regarding the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monument would “lead to the destruction of treasured lands and marine ecosystems.” EcoRI calls the area an “undisturbed underwater ecosystem” that would “once again be exposed to threats from commercial fishing.” One has to ask, if the area remains undisturbed and “pristine” after decades of commercial fishing, why would restoring fishing rights in the area suddenly threaten these ecosystems? click here to read the op-ed by former fisherman Richard Allen 08:20
Trump’s monument review is as secretive as Obama’s designations
Presidential use of the Antiquities Act is ripe for abuse, as major decisions impacting vast public lands, natural resources, property rights, livelihoods and private industry are left to the sole discretion of the president. After such a unilateral designation, the president does not need to substantiate his decision in any meaningful way, beyond the use of a few magic words on the face of the proclamation. It seemed like a positive step when President Trump in April issued an executive order seeking public input for a review of national monument designations over the last two decades. But it now appears that any hope for additional transparency may have been premature. click here to read the story 19:25
Interior secretary won’t eliminate any national monuments
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said he’s recommending that none of 27 national monuments carved from wilderness and ocean and under review by the Trump administration be eliminated. But there would be changes to a “handful,” he said. Zinke told The Associated Press that unspecified boundary adjustments for some monuments designated over the past four decades will be included in the recommendations he planned to give President Donald Trump on Thursday. None of the sites would revert to new ownership, he said, while public access for uses such as hunting, fishing or grazing would be maintained or restored. click here to read the story 12:39
Trump team nears decision on national monuments
As Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke approaches the 24 August deadline for his recommendations to President Donald Trump on whether to alter dozens of national monuments, conservation proponents say it remains all but impossible to predict which sites the administration could target for reductions or even wholesale elimination.,,, Obama created the first Atlantic marine monument in 2016 when he designated nearly 5,000 square miles for preservation off the coast of Massachusetts.,, The Boston Globe reported that Zinke appeared sympathetic while meeting with about 20 representatives of New England’s seafood industry. “When your area of access continues to be reduced and reduced … it just makes us noncompetitive,” Zinke said at the time. “The president’s priority is jobs, and we need to make it clear that we have a long-term approach to make sure that fishing fleets are healthy.” click here to read the story 11:38
Beaufort Mayor Billy Keyserling renews push against seismic testing as a deadline nears
Beaufort Mayor Billy Keyserling has formally opposed federal permits that would allow companies conducting seismic testing to harass marine life as a byproduct of the process. A public comment period seeking input on the authorizations ends Thursday. Five companies have applied to use seismic air guns to survey the Atlantic Ocean for potential oil and gas deposits. Seismic testing requires separate approval from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for the companies “to incidentally, but not intentionally, harass marine mammals.” The proposed testing would violate federal law by affecting more than a small number of animals and would have more than the “negligible impact” required for the authorizations,, click here to read the story 17:26
Seismic blasting, oil & gas drilling in Atlantic? Now’s the time to comment
The public is now being asked to comment on the president’s proposal to open up the Atlantic and all other federal offshore planning areas for potential oil and gas drilling. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and President Donald Trump announced Thursday that the 45-day public comment period on a new Five-Year National Offshore Oil and Gas Leasing Program on the Outer Continental Shelf will begin Monday. The comment period will close Aug. 17. To comment on the proposed Five-Year National Offshore Oil and Gas Leasing Program: click here to read the story, scroll down page for instructions. 08:43
Papahanaumokuakea Review Spurs Tension With Conservation Groups, Fisheries
President Donald Trump’s targeting of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in the northwest Hawaiian Islands for national review has revived a lopsided debate between Native Hawaiians, senators, scientists and conservation groups in favor of the monument’s designation, and an activist fishery council mainly concerned with “maximizing longline yields.” The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council vocally opposed the monument’s expansion in 2016 during a public comment process, communicating that to the White House under the leadership of Executive Director Kitty Simonds. click here to read the story 22:28
A meeting with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke – Concerns aired about Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument
Fishing groups from around New England met with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Friday to air complaints about former President Barack Obama’s designation of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument last year. The monument, the first marine national monument in U.S. Atlantic waters, protects about 4,000 square miles of ocean 150 miles southeast of Cape Cod. Fishermen say the protected area in which fishing is prohibited hurts their business and places an undue burden on an already heavily regulated industry. But Priscilla Brooks, vice president and director of ocean conservation at the Conservation Law Foundation, said the former administration did take fishermen’s concerns into account. Obama reduced the size of the original proposed monument by 60 percent and allowed lobster and crab fishermen a seven-year grace period to continue fishing there. “There was a robust public process,” she said. (BS!) click here to read the story 08:25
Zinke moving dozens of senior Interior Department officials in shake-up
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is reassigning dozens of top career officials within his ranks, a shake-up that appears to be the start of a broad reorganization of a department that manages one-fifth of all land within the United States. The decision to move members of the Senior Executive Service (SES) is legally permitted only after a political appointee has been in office for 120 days; Zinke won’t reach that mark until June 28.,,,The officials who received notices include Interior’s top climate policy official, Joel Clement, who directs the Office of Policy Analysis, as well as at least five senior officials of the Fish and Wildlife Service — nearly a quarter of that agency’s career SES staff. click here to read the story 18:46
Interior secretary set to visit Boston as enviros launch marine monument campaign
When Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke visits the Boston area on Friday, environmentalists plan to greet him by rallying for the preservation of national monuments that are under review by the Trump administration. The former Montana congressman has an 11 a.m. press event at a Legal Sea Foods location, according to his office. The Bay State visit could also afford the interior secretary a chance to meet with the state’s top Republican, Gov. Charlie Baker, although nothing has been announced. The fishing industry opposed President Barack Obama’s 2016 designation of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument on a roughly 4,900 square-mile area south of Cape Cod. According to a Zinke press aide, the secretary on Friday will meet with a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials and officials from the New England Aquarium about marine wildlife around the monument. The secretary will then attend a roundtable meeting with lobstermen and fishermen about the impact of the monument designation on their industry. click here to read the story 18:36
Monument review includes Northeast Canyons and Seamounts, Papahahanoukuakea National Marine Monument’s
President Donald Trump’s call to review 27 national monuments established by three former presidents,,, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke made his first recommendation Monday: Proposing a reduced size for the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah. He is set to issue a final report in late August for all the monuments. A closer look at five of the monuments that are being re-examined: Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monument, The designation closed the area to commercial fishermen, who go there primarily for lobster, red crab, squid, whiting, butterfish, swordfish and tuna. A coalition of commercial fishing groups filed a lawsuit in March to overturn the designation. They argued the creation of the monument would bring economic distress to fishermen and their families. Papahahanoukuakea National Marine Monument,The decision to expand the monument was the subject of fierce debate within Hawaii, with both sides invoking Native Hawaiian culture to argue why it should or shouldn’t be expanded. click here to read the story 08:30
New England Fishery Management Council seeks voice in marine monument review
New England fishery regulators might seek to reclaim some of the authority they lost when President Barack Obama virtually walled off thousands of square miles of ocean south of Cape Cod to commercial fisheries. On Tuesday, the New England Fisheries Management Council’s Habitat Committee recommended that the regulatory council provide feedback to the Trump administration about the designation of the 4,913 square-mile area by the continental shelf. “I would strongly suggest we take the opportunity to comment,” said Eric Reid, a council member and the general manager of Seafreeze Shoreside, a seafood processing facility in Galilee, Rhode Island. While the committee members did not delve into what the letter should say during Tuesday’s meeting, the council chairman, former Rep. John Quinn, the director of public interest at the UMass School of Law in Dartmouth, made clear he believes the council should have jurisdiction. click here to read the story 07:57
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke – Keep Offshore Oil Drilling and Seismic Testing Away From the Atlantic Coast
On April 6 Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke told the National Ocean Industries Association that an executive order was forthcoming that would start the process of rewriting the five-year plan for the Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program. The next day an op-ed in Morning Consult by Carl Bentzel began Big Oil’s public relations campaign to paint oil/gas exploration and drilling off the Atlantic coast as safe and oil-spill free given new technology and safeguards. Mr. Bentzel argues that the “first steps should be responsible assessment of oil and gas resources in our South Atlantic Ocean.” So let’s start with seismic airgun blasting that is the essence of this exploration. While proponents of seismic testing say the process is safe for marine life and will provide information for a public debate, neither point is factual. click here to read the op-ed 09:17
