BUDGET/INTERIOR/TRUMP PEOPLE/RYAN ZINKE: “Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Tuesday [6-20-17] defended the $1.6 billion in funding cuts that President Trump has proposed for his department, telling a Senate hearing that ‘this is what a balanced budget looks like.’
But Democrats on the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources took issue with the $400 million that the national parks would lose in fiscal 2018, which they said would trigger staff reductions at 90 percent of them. They also questioned the $370 million in cuts the Bureau of Indian Affairs would face, including for education and assistance programs, and $163 million in cuts to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, the committee’s ranking Democrat, insisted that the proposed budget ‘would devastate our national parks.’ And the reductions for Indian Affairs cut ‘betrays the secretary’s dedication to Native tribes,’ she charged.
Republicans, on the other hand, applauded the Trump administration’s proposals to invest in energy exploration on public lands, including a controversial move to open the Arctic to oil and gas exploration after the Obama administration closed it.”
-Darryl Fears, “Zinke defends huge job cuts at Interior: ‘This is what a balanced budget looks like.’,” The Washington Post online, June 21, 2017 03:38pm