Free Republic

What gives here? Conservative talk show host, Mark Levin, makes an excellent observation as well as ask an excellent question. First the Obaminator: "...and the Department of the Interior has announced that they will be sending Swat teamns to the Gulf to inspect all platforms and rigs." Mark Levin: "Swat teams from the Department of the Interior? When I was Deputy Secretary of the Interior Department (during the Reagan administration), I don't remember any Swat teams. Now you heard hims say that the Department of the Interior was going to send Swat teams, I didn't know that they had Swat...

Republican U.S. House Natural Resources Committee leaders have escalated an ongoing investigation into Joe Biden’s Interior Secretary Deb Haaland regarding her connections to the left-wing environmental activist group Pueblo Action Alliance (PAA). A letter sent to Secretary Haaland and the top Interior Department ethics official, Heather Gottry, and spearheaded by Natural Resources Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., raises concerns about a potential “lack of impartiality and misuse of her position” in support of PAA and certain family members. Haaland’s daughter has been involved with PAA, while her husband has been engaged in consulting work related to Interior Department actions. The...

Native American activists verbally clashed outside Chaco Culture National Historical Park on Sunday, derailing a visit by U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who was there to celebrate a 20-year buffer around a World Heritage Site in northwest New Mexico. Haaland’s trip to Chaco on Sunday was canceled when a group of Navajo land allotment owners blocked the road, upset with the Biden administration’s recent decision to enshrine for the next 20 years what previously had been an informal 10-mile buffer around the World Heritage site. The buffer protects the area from future federal mineral development, including oil and gas drilling....

On Friday, Joe Biden’s U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a former Democrat congresswoman from New Mexico, released her decision to ban permitting of any type of natural mineral extraction within ten miles of Chaco Canyon, resulting in fury from the Navajo Nation, which opposed the measure after unsuccessfully trying to work with the administration on a compromise. “Despite the Navajo Nation’s position, Secretary Haaland proceeded to issue this decision one day after the Navajo Nation commemorated our Treaty Day, which recognizes the Treaty of 1868 and the start of the government-to-government relationship between the Navajo Nation and...

Gas prices went up again on Wednesday, setting a new record for the 12th straight day even after resident Joe Biden’s unprecedented release from the nation’s emergency petroleum reserves began on Sunday. According to AAA’s gas tracker, the nationwide average for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline is $4.56, surpassing the prior day’s high when prices passed $4.50. Diesel fuel, used for tankers, trains, trucks, farming machinery, and other industrial equipment, also reached a new high at $5.577 per gallon on Wednesday. The daily consecutive records come weeks ahead of Memorial Day, when prices traditionally reach their spring peak. In...

A past link to an activity described as eco-terrorism should disqualify President Joe Biden’s nominee to head the Bureau of Land Management, according to a Republican senator.Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming responded critically to nominee Tracy Stone-Manning’s role in sending a threatening letter on behalf of an environmentalist group that committed tree spiking crimes in 1989.“Tracy Stone-Manning collaborated with eco-terrorists,” Barrasso said, according to the Daily Caller. “She worked with extreme environmental activists who spiked trees, threatening the lives and livelihoods of loggers.”

The Trump administration announced new and long overdue changes to the Endangered Species Act Monday morning. “The best way to uphold the Endangered Species Act is to do everything we can to ensure it remains effective in achieving its ultimate goal—recovery of our rarest species. The Act’s effectiveness rests on clear, consistent and efficient implementation,” Interior Secretary David Bernhardt released in a statement. “An effectively administered Act ensures more resources can go where they will do the most good: on-the-ground conservation.” "The revisions to the regulations clarify that the standards for delisting and reclassification of a species consider the same five...

An operative for American Bridge 21st Century (Founder DAVID BROCK), a pro-Democrat political action committee, has been charged with assaulting a staffer working for Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, according to the Associated Press. Wilfred Stark was charged with simple assault after he allegedly approached Zinke, yelling at him, outside of a hearing. Stark then “used his full body to push” Zinke's spokeswoman, Heather Swift, as she moved to leave the room, according to the police report cited by the AP. “He is a big guy. He came up behind me fast, aggressive and very physical,” Swift said in a statement...

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is pressing ahead with a massive overhaul of his department, despite growing opposition to his proposal to move hundreds of public employees out of Washington and create a new organizational map that largely ignores state boundaries. Zinke wants to divide most of the department’s 70,000 employees and their responsibilities into 13 regions based on rivers and ecosystems, instead of the current map based mostly on state lines. The proposal would relocate many of the Interior Department’s top decision-makers from Washington to still-undisclosed cities in the West. The headquarters of some of its major bureaus also would...

The Trump administration is putting more than 76 million acres of federal water up for lease in the largest offshore drilling initiative in American history. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced the massive lease sale, slated for March 2018, on Tuesday morning, and said the move is a key component of the administration’s effort to tap U.S. energy reserves and reap the economic benefits that come along with them.

On Fri., Sept. 15, Secretary of the Interior (SOI) Ryan Zinke signed Secretarial Order 3356, continuing the Department of Interior’s (DOI) efforts to support sportsmen and women and enhance conservation stewardship. The order seeks to improve wildlife management and conservation, increase access to public lands for hunting, shooting and fishing and puts a greater emphasis on the promoting outdoor activities among youth, veterans and minority communities. -----SNIP----- As noted in the DOI press release, SO 3356 directs bureaus within the department to: 1. Within 120 days produce a plan to expand access for hunting and fishing on BLM, USFWS and...

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Monday announced the federal government will relax Obama-era rules designed to protect the imperiled sage grouse, saying the administration will offer states flexibility in how they choose to protect the bird and also will loosen restrictions on energy development in sage grouse habitat. In a statement issued in response to a lengthy report from Interior’s sage grouse review team, Mr. Zinke said the recommendations will go into effect immediately.

Ten Idaho and farmers and ranchers spent an hour meeting with Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke June 2. They covered a wide range of topics important to the state’s and nation’s farming industries. Farmers and ranchers described a private meeting with two of President Donald Trump’s cabinet members June 2 as unprecedented and historic. Instead of addressing the group, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke listened and took notes, according to those who were there. “They just didn’t have an agenda. They truly wanted to listen to us,” said Aberdeen potato farmer...

The Department of the Interior (DOI) hired a registered sex offender who hid the fact he was arrested three more times and convicted of two domestic violence felonies while working for the government, according to an investigation. “Our investigation confirmed that the employee is a convicted felon, is a registered sex offender and is currently on probation with the State of Colorado,” DOI’s inspector general (IG) wrote in a short summary of an investigation into a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) employee. BLM hired the male employee, who is not named, in 2011, and he had not been on probation...

In the latest rebuke of the Obama administration’s expansive view of executive power, a federal judge has struck down the Interior Department’s effort to regulate fracking for oil and natural gas. Judge Scott Skavdahl of the District Court of Wyoming already had put a hold on the regulations last year, and in a decision released late Tuesday, he ruled that Congress did not give Interior the power to regulate hydraulic fracturing, indeed it had expressly withheld that power with some narrow exceptions.

This summer will be busy for the Obama administration’s energy and environmental regulators, with numerous high-profile rule releases planned. Between June and August, regulators hope to fill out the Obama administration’s agenda with major rules on greenhouse gases, the oil and natural gas sectors, coal production, and other policy priorities, according to a rule-making schedule released by the White House late Thursday. The administration’s main climate change rule from the Environmental Protection Agency, which would slash greenhouse gases in the power sector by 30 percent, is due out in August. That aligns with the timeline EPA officials, including Administrator Gina...

DENVER — Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper made good Friday on his promise to sue the federal government over its hotly contested move to list the Gunnison sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act. The Colorado Attorney General’s office filed a notice of intent to sue with Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and Fish and Wildlife Service director Daniel M. Ashe, arguing that the agency’s Nov. 12 decision to list the bird as threatened was flawed and failed to appreciate fully the impact of aggressive state and local conservation efforts. “The Service failed to use the best available science in its listing...

(CNSNews.com) – Interior Secretary Sally Jewell on Thursday announced a “mitigation strategy” for development projects, including natural gas and oil production, on public lands. It was her first formal “secretarial order” since taking the job. “Today we have an unprecedented opportunity – using science and technology to create a better understanding of landscapes than ever before – to advance important conservation goals and achieve our development objectives together,” Jewell said in a speech at the National Press Club. She said it’s a question of striking the “right balance” between development and conservation and helping businesses to be “good partners and...

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho -- A southeastern Idaho ranch lost 176 sheep as the animals ran in fear from two wolves that chased through a herd of about 2,400 animals south of Victor....

Jewell has served as the outdoor retailer's CEO since 2005. She started her career as a petroleum engineer working in the oil fields of Oklahoma and Colorado for Mobil Oil Corp. She then moved to the banking industry, before joining the REI board in 1996 and becoming chief operations officer four years later.